\ *f 
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// /';■/' 



A SKETCH OF THE LIFE AND TIMES 



OF 



THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH 



RECTOR OF COMBE-FLOREY, AND CANON RESIDENTIARY OF ST. PAUL'S 



BASED ON FAMILY DOCUMENTS 

AND 

THE RECOLLECTIONS OF PERSONAL FRIENDS 



By STUART J. REID 



> ' 



Jllitstrateb 




NEW YORK 

HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 

18 8 5 



V^^^SA 



TO 

JOHN EUSKIN, 

AS A TRIBUTE OP ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS, AND OP 

REVERENCE POR THE UNSELFISH ENDS TO WHICH THAT GENIUS IS DEVOTED, 

THESE MEMORIALS OP 

SYDNEY SMITH, 

WHO, LIKE HIMSELF, LABOURED IN THE COMMON CAUSE OF PROGRESS 

IN AN UNCOMMON WAY, AND WAS, MOREOVER, 

"THE FIRST IN THE LITERARY CIRCLES OP LONDON TO ASSERT 

THE VALUE OP ' MODERN PAINTERS,' " 

ARE, BY PERMISSION, 

BeDtcateD. 



PEEFACE. 

The chief sources from which this book has been drawn 
are indicated on its title-page, though, in a lesser 
degree, information has also been derived from a 
number of other channels. To the relatives of Sydney 
Smith, and particularly to his granddaughter, Miss 
Holland, I feel greatly indebted, alike for the con- 
fidence with which they have honoured me, and for 
their generosity in placing, without restriction, docu- 
ments of the most valuable nature at my disposal. 
This attempt, indeed, to set the many-sided character 
of Sydney Smith in a somewhat different light from 
that in which it has hitherto been commonly regarded 
could never have been made but for the manuscripts, 
letters, and reminiscences which were thus rendered 
accessible. At the same time, it is only right to add 
that I am entirely responsible for the selection of letters 
and papers contained in these pages, as well as for the 
interpretation placed upon them ; and the same remark, 
of course, applies to the inferences which are drawn 
from every incident recorded in the book. 

Many old friends of Sydney Smith have rendered 
assistance of various kinds, and have added to the 
interest and value of these memorials by personal 
reminiscences, and by information which they alone 



viii PEEFACB. 

could impart. Space will not permit me to mention all 
the help thus generously afforded ; nor am I sure that 
some who have rendered it — and they belong to every 
grade of society — would care to be directly named in 
this expression of my thanks. To Mrs. Malcolm, who, 
as the daughter of Archbishop Harcourt, can recall 
many delightful episodes in Sydney Smith's career, 
and still cherishes vivid recollections of his visits to 
Bishopthorpe and Nuneham, I am indebted for some in- 
teresting facts, and several characteristic notes dashed 
off in the intimacy of a life-long friendship ; and to Mr. 
E. A. Kinglake, J. P., of Taunton, I am scarcely less 
indebted for many minute details concerning the 
closing years at Combe-Florey, as well as for the con- 
stant encouragement which he has given me at every 
stage of the work. 

I desire gratefully to acknowledge the obligations I 
am under to the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Earl of 
Durham, the Earl of Morley, Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, 
M.P., Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Bart., M.P., Sir Wm. 
Vernon Harcourt, M.P., Mr. George Howard, M.P., 
Mr. George Fortescue Wilbraham, J. P., and the late 
Mr. W. Bromley Davenport, M.P., for the cordial 
manner in which they have given me permission to 
insert family letters and papers in their possession. 

My thanks are also due, though in differing degrees, 
to the Countess of Camperdown, the Lady Elizabeth 
Grey, the Honourable Mrs. J. Stuart Wortley, Mrs. 
Bond, of the British Museum, and Miss Laura Leyces- 
ter, formerly of Toft, for the kind way in which they 
have enriched the pages of this book by facts which 
came under their own observation, and by suggestions 
and hints which have thrown fresh light on a number 



PREFACE. IX 

of obscure but important incidents in the full and 
varied life of their distinguished friend. 

I am likewise indebted to the clergy for the willing 
co-operation they have invariably afforded me in 
matters of local research, as well as for the informa- 
tion which they have given me concerning Sydney 
Smith's relations towards his parishioners in different 
places, and at different periods of his life. My thanks 
are especially due to the Rev. Canon Girdlestone, 
of Bristol; the Rev. Canon Tinling, of Gloucester 
(curate to Sydney Smith at Halberton) ; the Rev. Dr. 
Sewell, Warden of New College, Oxford; the Rev. 
Dr. Cazenove, of Edinburgh ; and the Revs. John Still, 
of Nether Avon ; C. H. Rice, M.A., of Cheam ; Albert 
Hughes, B.A., of Woodford, Essex; Francis Simpson, 
M.A., of Foston ; W. L. Palmes, M.A., of Naburn,York ; 
Richard Wilton, M.A., of Londesborough ; Edward 
A. Sanford, M.A., of Combe-Florey ; E. J. Gregory, 
M.A., of Halberton; and W. R. Mibnan, M.A., 
Librarian of Sion College, and Minor Canon of St. 
Paul's, for their unfailing courtesy in doing all in their 
power to obtain accurate and reliable facts concerning 
both the man and his ministry. 

To Mr. Henry Johnson, of Richmond, Surrey, I am 
also indebted for voluntary investigations pursued 
with patience and skill at the British Museum, by 
means of which several complicated points have been 
elucidated. I desire also to place on record the 
obligations I am under to my father, the Rev. 
Alexander Reid, formerly of Newcastle-on-Tyne, but 
now resident under my roof — himself a close student 
of political and ecclesiastical movements for nearly 
fifty years — for information concerning far-off public 



X PEEFACE. 

events and half-forgotten controversies, which, but for 
such constant and kindly assistance, must otherwise 
have been overlooked. 

My acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Walter Tom- 
linson for the artistic pilgrimage which he undertook 
to the chief places associated with the public and pri- 
vate life of Sydney Smith, in order to obtain the illus- 
trations which embellish these pages ; and I am also 
greatly obliged to Messrs. Longman and Co., for their 
immediate permission to avail myself of the invaluable 
information contained in what must ever remain a 
great and authoritative work on the subject, the 
charming " Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith," by his 
daughter, Lady Holland. Reference is made through- 
out these pages to the obligations thus incurred ; and 
it is therefore, perhaps, sufficient to add that extracts 
from the Letters of Sydney Smith, edited by Mrs. 
Austin, and appended to Lady Holland's work, are 
referred to under the general title of " Published 
Correspondence." 

Most of the materials in the shape of note-books, 
documents, and letters which Lady Holland had at 
her disposal have been open to my inspection and use 
through the kindness of her daughter, Miss Holland, 
and I have therefore been able to weave into the 
present narrative letters and facts which it seemed 
premature to disclose twenty years ago. 

Two or three words are enough to state the chief 
object of this book, which is intended to supplement, 
and not to rival, the biography which is already before 
the world. I have ventured to paint the figure of 
Sydney Smith against the background of his times, 
and to describe the men with whom he mingled, and 



PREFACE. XI 

the movements in which he took part. I have sought 
to point out the fidelity to duty in small things as well 
as in great, which marked every stage of his brave and 
busy career, and which, indeed, created the bracing 
atmosphere in which his entire life was spent. I have 
done what lies in my power, by an appeal to indisput- 
able facts, to dispel some lingering errors concerning 
the character of a man whose conduct and motives 
have been occasionally maligned, and frequently mis- 
understood. 

And I have also attempted — with what success 
others must judge — to show how substantial are the 
claims of Sydney Smith on the gratitude of the English 
people for his persistent and courageous endeavours to 
promote by his peculiar but powerful advocacy all 
kinds of social improvement and political reform. 

WiLMSLOw, Cheshire, 
8th July, 1884. 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. 
1771—1793. 

PARENTAGE — CHILDHOOD — YOUTH. 

Bom at Woodford, Essex, June 3rd, 1771 — Eecklessness and 
eccentricity of his father — Maria Olier, his mother, of 
French extraction — Her influence over her children — 
Sydney Smith's brothers and sisters — Scholar of Winches- 
ter, 1782 — Eapid progress there— Youthful adventures of 
Sydney and Bobus — " Gregory Griffin" — Subsequent career 
of Bobus Smith — Sydney proceeds to New College, Oxford, 
1789, and obtains a Fellowship at the age of twenty — His 
self-reliance and poverty — Generosity to Courtenay — Quits 
Oxford in 1794, and with some misgivings prepares to 
enter the Church ....... 

CHAPTER II. 

1794—1800. 

CURATE AT NETHER AVON — TUTOR TO MICHAEL BEACH — MARRIAGE. 

Loneliness as Curate in remote Wiltshire village — Establishes 
Day and Sunday Schools with the help of Mr. and Mrs. 
Beach — The Beach family and Nether Avon — Mr. Verrey's 
list of Nether Avon poor, 1793 — Characteristic comments 
by Sydney Smith — Correspondence with the Squire on the 
wants of the parish — Mr. Hicks-Beach proposes that the 
Curate should accompany his son on his travels in the two- 
fold capacity of tutor and friend — Weimar scheme aban- 
doned on account of the war — Arrival in Edinburgh as 
tutor to young Beach in June, 1798 — The literary and 



PAGE 



XIV CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



social condition of the Scottish capital — Sydney Smith's first 
impressions of the Scotch — Preaches at Charlotte Chapel, 
and publishes his first book — Marriage to Miss Catherine 
Pybus, of Cheam, June, 1800 — Lines on Mrs. Pybus's dog 
— Returns to Edinburgh with his bride —Generosity of 
Mr. Hicks-Beach 22 

CHAPTER III. 

1802. 

PROJECTION OF THE "EDINBURGH REVIEW" JEFFREY, HORNER, 

AND BROUGHAM. 

Sydney Smith's account of the origin of the Review — Lord 
Jeffrey's reminiscences of its early days — Lord Brougham's 
statement concerning the memorable enterprise — Compari- 
son of the three accounts — Appearance of the Review, 
October, 1802, and immediate success — Jeffrey's hesita- 
tion in accepting the Editorship — His services as Editor, 
and ability as Critic — Francis Horner — His brilliant career 
and early death — His contributions to the Revieiv—^enry 
Brougham— His rapidity as a writer — His energy and ver- 
satility — The impression which he made upon friends and 
foes — The lights and shadows of his character ... 55 

CHAPTER IV. 
1798—1803. 

LIFE IN EDINBTURGH AS TUTOR, PREACHER, AND REVIEWER. 

The Edinburgh Revieio and the growth of public opinion — 
Sydney Smith's contributions — Characteristics of his style 
— His courage and candour as a literary man — His injustice 
to Missions — His wit, the vehicle for his wisdom — An un- 
published essay — His letters from Edinburgh concerning 
his pupil — Birth of Saba — Death of his mother —Attends 
the Lectures of Dugald Stewart on Moral Philosophy — 
Studies Medicine and Anatomy — The Friday Club and its 
members — Generosity towards John Leyden — A note to 
Jeflfrev 76 



CONTENTS. XV 

CHAPTEE V. 
1803, 1804. 

ARRIVAL IN LONDON, AND EARLY STRUGGLES THERE. 

PAGE 

Resolves to settle in London — Seasons for the step — The Squire 
of Nether Avon's reluctance to part with him — His pro- 
spects in the Church — Regret at severing his Edinburgh 
ties — His home at 8, Doughty Street —An act of self- 
sacrifice on the part of his wife — His difficulties in 
obtaining clerical recognition— "The Cultivation and Im- 
'provement of the Animal Spirits:" an unpublished essay 
— His remedy for nervousness — Attitude of his ecclesiasti- 
cal superiors — The fascination of his character for all sorts 
and conditions of ordinary men . . . , . 100 



CHAPTER VI. 

1805—1807. 

HOLLAND HOUSE PREACHER AT THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL 

LECTURER AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION " PETER PLYMLEY " 

— GIFT OF FOSTON BY LORD BRSKINB. 

The historical and literary associations of Holland House — Lord 
Holland and his guests — Dr. John Allen and his position 
at Holland House — Sydney Smith's introduction to society 
there — Home life in Doughty Street — Sydney Smith as a 
preacher — Sir Thomas Bernard and the Foundling Hospital 
— Berkeley Chapel — Appointed to lecture at the Royal 
Institution — His success as a lecturer— His criticism of 
Aristotle— Birth of Douglas — Removal to 18, Orchard 
Street— Death of Pitt and Fox— The Ministry of " All the 
Talents," and Horner's vindication of its policy — Sydney 
Smith appointed to the living of Foston by Lord Erskine — 
Appearance of the " Peter Plymley " letters — Their effect 
upon the public mind . . . . . . ,117 



XVI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VII. 
1807—1814. 

REMOVAL TO YORKSHIRE — LIFE AT HESLINGTON — BUILDS 
FOSTON RECTORY. 



PAGE 



The Clergy Residence Bill — Sydney Smith's dilemma — His first 
glimpse of Foston — Sydney Smith's avowed motives for 
writing reviews — The cost of removal, and how it was met 
— Settles at Heslington — His friendship with the local 
Squire — Lord Grey and Howick — Sydney Smith at his 
own fireside — His intimacy with Archbishop Harcourt — 
Sydney Smith's treatment of scientific and clerical bores at 
Bishopthorpe — Sydney Smith as a diner-out — Decision to 
build at Foston — Birth of Wyndham — Mrs. Sydney Smith's 
account of the building of Foston Rectory — On the threshold 
of a new life 150 



CHAPTER VIII. 
1814—1817. 

LIFE AT FOSTON — THE CHURCH, THE RECTORY, AND THE PEOPLE 

KINDNESS TO THE POOR AS " VILLAGE PARSON AND DOCTOR " 

— FONDNESS FOR CHILDREN POPULARITY WITH SERVANTS. 

A comfortable house — Castle Howard opens its gates to the new 
Rector — Foston to-day — Description of the Church — The 
Rectory and its grounds — Personal recollections of Sydney 
Smith at Foston — The Rector's medical skill — " Sydney's 
orchards" — He turns farmer— The village children — His 
quarrel with the tailor over the alteration in the " Immor- 
tal " — Establishes a Bible-class — The reverence of his old 
servants for the memory of their master — Bunch and her 
successor — Robinson, the joiner ; Kilvington, the coachman 
— Friendship with Sir George Phillips, of Manchester — 
Charity Sermon at Prestwich Church, Manchester, 1817, 
and Miss Leycester's recollections of it — -His wit and 
humour . 172 



CONTENTS. XVli 

CHAPTER IX 
1818—1824. 

FAMILY CHANGES ATTITUDE ON PUBLIC QUESTIONS — THE TREAT- 
MENT OF PRISONERS — THE GAME LAWS AN ACCESSION OF 

FORTUNE BUSY LIFE AT FOSTON. 

PAGE 

Isolation of Ms position — Love of Reading — His own statement 
concerning Ms expenses atFoston — The living of AmptMll 
offered Mm by Lord Holland — Illness of Douglas— Visits 
Earl Grey and Mr. Lambton — Correspondence with Lord 
Lansdowne on Prison Reform — His opinion on the " heirs 
apparent" at Castle Howard and Holland House— Lady 
Georgina Morpeth — Scotch sheep and their vagaries — 
Spring-guns and man-traps, and his denunciation of them — 
His clemency as a magistrate — Popular discontent in 1819 
— His views on Lord Eitzwilliam's dismissal — An unex- 
pected windfall — Death of his father — Advice concerning 
low spirits — A comical episode on the Malton Road — Re- 
visits Edinburgh— Lambton Castle — The introduction of 
gas — A frank criticism— Appointed High Sheriff's Chaplam, 
and preaches in York Minster — Lady Camperdown's account 
of Sydney Smith's visits to Weston House . . .199 



CHAPTER X. 

1825—1829. 

SYDNEY SMITH AND THE CATHOLIC CLAIMS — APPOINTED CANON 
OF BRISTOL BY LORD LYNDHURST — FAREWELL TO FOSTON. 

O'Connell and the Catholic Association— Death of Canning — 
Condition of Public Affairs — Sydney Smith's last contribu- 
tion to the Edinhurgh Review — His connection with Lon- 
desborough, and traditions of him there — Friendship Avith 
Lord and Lady Wenlock— Statement on the subject, and 
personal reminiscences by the Hon. Mrs. J. Stuart Wortley 
— Marriage of youngest daughter to IVIr. Hibbert — Canon 
of Bristol — Preaches on Religious Toleration before the 
Mayor and Corporation of Bristol, and gives great offence — 

a 



Xviii CONTENTS. 



PAGE 



Catholic Emancipation— Death of Douglas— Obtains the 
living of Halberton with his prebendal stall — Exchanges 
Foston for Combe-Florey, to the grief of his Yorkshire 
parishioners . . . . • • • • • 239 

CHAPTER XL 

1829—1832. 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF COMBE-FLORET HIS MANNER OP LIFE 

THERE — -APPOINTED CANON RESIDENTIARY OF ST. PAUL's BY 
EARL GREY— TAKES PART IN THE STRUGGLE FOR REFORM — 
DAME PARTINGTON'S COMBAT WITH THE ATLANTIC. 

The scenery around Combe-Florey — Letter to Lord Lansdowne— 
Lord Jeffrey in Somerset— Sydney Smith's practical bene- 
volence towards the suffering and the poor— His foreign 
deer — His encouragement of thrift — His connection with 
Halberton — Canon Tinling's reminiscences — Earl Grrey and 
Reform — Gazette Extraordinarij, Glorious Victory I — Reads 
himself in at St. Paul's — Sydney Smith and the Episco- 
pate — Mrs. Partington's Battle with the Atlantic — Mr. 
Arthur Kinglake's recollections of the famous speech — The 
Reform Bill becomes law . . . . . . .271 

CHAPTER XII. 
1832-1839. 

COMBE-FLOREY AND LONDON — OLD FRIENDS AND NEW LETTERS 

TO ARCHDEACON SINGLETON REPUBLISHES HIS CONTRIBU- 
TIONS TO THE " EDINBURGH REVIEW." 

A graceful old age— Death of Sir James Mackintosh — Lord and 
Lady Morley — Marriage of eldest daughter to Dr. Holland 
- -Letter to Lady Grey — His appearance in the pulpit of 
St. Paul's— Luttrell and Sharp — Difficulties in the way of 
Trial by Jury in Australia — In France Avith Mrs. Smith — 
His neighbours at Combe-Florey — The poetical Medicine 
Chest— His controversy Avith the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
sion — His services m the pages of the Edinburgh Review 
to the cause of Political and Social Reform — His way of 
putting things ........ 304 



CONTENTS. - xix 



CHAPTER XIII. 
1839-1843. 

POLITICS SOCIETY WEALTH — FAME. 



PAGE 



His opinions on the Ballot — Death, of Courtenay — Unexpected 
wealth — Dickens, Macaulay, and Carlyle — Mrs. Grote — 
The Athenaeum Club — Growing love of London— Some 
characteristic sayings— "The brilliant reptile's venomed 
fang" — Social changes— la church at Combe-Florey— 
Sermon at St. Paul's on the Vestments Question — 
Antipathy to the Puseyites— Letter from Bobus— Cor- 
respondence with Miss Martiueau— " What is a Puseyite 1 " 337 



CHAPTER XIV. 

1843—1845. 

OLD AGE "honour, LOVE, OBEDIENCE, TROOPS OF FRIENDS " — 

ILLNESS AND DEATH —HIS PLACE IN ENGLISH LITERATURE, 
AND LIFE. 

Sydney Smith as a member of the Chapter of St. Paul's — His 
ability as a man of business — The railroad, one of the con- 
solations of his old age — Mr. Gladstone's recollections of a 
conversation with him- — Professor Owen and Sydney Smith 
— His friendship with Lord Granville — Lord Houghton^ 
The alleged irreverence of Sydney Smith — Letter from 
Mrs. Malcolm, the most intimate of his surviving friends, 
on the subject — Testimony of others— Sydney Smith and 
John Ruskin — His failing strength, but unfailing mirth — 
A letter to Lady Holland — Sydney Smith's petition to 
Congress on the subject of Pennsylvanian Bonds — His 
American friends — Final words at the Cathedral — The 
beginning of the end — Last letter to Mrs. Malcolm — His 
illness and death — Inscription on his grave at Kensal 
Green Cemetery — A conspicuous omission among the 
-^monuments in St. Paul's — His claims on national gratitude 364 



XX 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Engraved Portrait . . . . . . . F) 

Gateway of Winchester College 

Yew-tree Walk, ]N"ether Avon 

Kether Avon House and Chiircli , 

38, South Hanover Street, Edinburgh , 

The House to which Sydney Smith took his Bride 

Charlotte Chapel, Eose Street, Edinburgh 

Nether Avon Church 

Jeffrey's house, Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh . 

Craig's Close, Edinburgh .... 

Facsimile of Autograph Letter .... To face page 

The Canongate Tolbooth, Edinburgh 

Edinburgh Castle 

Holland House ...... 

Early London Home — 1 8, Orchard Street, Portman Square 
The Foundling Hospital .... 

Sydney Smith's House at Heslington, near York 
Porch of Foston Church .... 

Interior of Foston Church . - . , 
Foston Eectory .... 

Chair from Foston Eectory . ^ . , 
Foston Church . . . . > . 

York Minster . . .... 

Bristol Cathedral . .... 

A Glimpse of Combe-Florey Rectory 

The Castle Hall, Taunton .... 

Coml^e-Florey Church .... 

Mrs. Grote's Sketch of Combe-Florey Rectory 
Interior of Combe-Florey Church . 

St. Paul's Cathedral 

Last London Home — 56, Green Street, Grosvenor Square 
The Grave of Sydney Smith 



PAGE 

'ontlspiece 

21 

26 

30 

43 

45 

48 

54 

59 

75 

88 

99 

116 

120 

139 

149 

158 

171 

177 

179 

198 

230 

238 

270 

274 

303 

336 

345 

355 

263 

389 

394 



A 

SKETCH OF 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 

OF THB 

EBV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



CHAPTER I. 
1771—1793. 

Parentage, childhood, and youth. 

Sydney Smith was born at Woodford, in Essex, on the 
3rd of June, 1771. Beyond the official record at the 
parish church of his baptism, on the 1st of July in the 
same year — which contains no information except the 
names of his parents — nothing is now known concern- 
ing the family in Woodford, and local tradition is 
even unable to point out the house in which the great 
wit was born. This, whilst a matter of regret, need 
occasion but little surprise, for the birth of a lowly 
child, like the death of a lowly man, is an event which 
the busy world has no time to notice ; they pass un- 
heeded, except in the narrow circle in which the child 
henceforth figures, or from which the man is missed. 
Sydney Smith belonged, as indeed his ubiquitous 
surname itself suggests, to a race which is more 
numerous than select, and from the outset of his career 

B 



2 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

he was proudly conscious that his claims to honour 
must of necessity rest on a more substantial basis 
than that which inherited distinction affords. " The 
Smiths," said he to an heraldic compiler, who was 
anxious to include the armorial bearings of the 
renowned Canon of St. Paul's in his work, — " the 
Smiths never had any arms, and have invariably sealed 
their letters with their thumbs." ^ He relates with 
roguish glee that on another occasion when questioned 
— apparently somewhat narrowly — by a lady of title, 
concerning his grandfather, he gravely informed her 
that " he disappeared about the, time of the assizes, and 
— we asked no questions." 

In spite of such merry fabrications, his descent, 
without being noble, was respectable on the side of 
each parent. His father, Robert Smith, was the eldest 
son of a wholesale Whitney merchant in Eastcheap, 
who came from his native Devonshire to London in 
the early years of last century, and eventually amassed 
a moderate fortune in trade. Left whilst still a youth 
to his own guidance, Robert Smith abandoned the 
business in Eastcheap to his brother John, who — unlike 
himself — was of a plodding and methodical nature, 
and, on the strength of a small competency, set out to 
see the world. There was a dash both of restlessness 
and eccentricity about Robert Smith, and he certainly 
transmitted the latter, if not the former characteristic, 
to the most distinguished of his sons. Few better 
illustrations of the saying that truth is stranger than 
fiction can easily be found than that which the career 
of Sydney Smith's father presents. He was a man of 

^ " Memoir of Sydney Smith," by his daughter, Lady Holland, 
chap. ix. p. 163. Longmans, Green, and Co. 



OF THE EBV. STDNEr SMITH. 3 

considerable ability, endowed with great force of cha- 
racter, and a keen sense of humour; but his disposition 
was selfish, and his temper capricious ; and there is no 
doubt whatever that he was impulsive in his move- 
ments and arrogant in manner. He seems to have had 
a mania for doing rash and unaccountable things, and 
— in his more vigorous years at least— he was fickle m 
purpose and uncertain in action. 

His marriage is a case in point, and his conduct 
then was eccentric in the extreme; and, consider- 
ing the entire circumstances of the case, he was 
guilty of an almost unpardonable freak. Having 
won the affections of a beautiful girl, he duly led 
her to the altar; but no sooner was the ceremony 
concluded than he left his bride at the door of St. 
George's, Bloomsbury, in the care of her mother, 
and abruptly departed for America — a formidable 
undertaking, especially to the imagination of a young 
girl, in the middle of last century. After spending 
some of the best years of his life in half-random 
excursions up and down the world, Robert Smith 
eventually returned to England and his patient wife, to 
diminish still further his patrimony by a series of 
speculations in houses and land. At length, having 
worked off some of his superfluous and ill- directed 
energy in buying, selling, and not getting gain, he 
settled down, when quite an old man, at Bishop's 
Lydiard, Somerset, where he died in 1827, at the age 
of eighty-eight. His last years were probably his 
happiest, for he grew more gentle and considerate with 
time ; and Sydney was accustomed to declare that his 
father was one of the few people he had ever seen 
improved by age. 



4 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

The beautiful girl — wlio assuredly was worthy of 
more handsome treatment — was Maria Olier, the 
youngest daughter of a Languedoc emigrant exiled 
from France for conscience' sake at the Revocation of 
the Edict of J^antes. In appearance Miss Olier is 
said to have resembled Mrs. Siddons, and all who knew 
her seem to have been attracted towards her by the 
charm of her manners and the goodness of her heart. 
Maria OHer, indeed, both before and after her marriage, 
was distinguished amongst her friends by tlie strength 
of her principles, the kindliness of her nature, and the 
sparkling vivacity of thought and expression which lit 
up her lively speech. Without an effort she won 
golden opinions from all who knew her, and retained — 
amid the general admiration which her goodness and 
beauty evoked — to the close of a life that was all too 
short, the gentle and modest spirit with which she 
began it. Much of that peculiar fascination which 
Sydney Smith exerted over so many of his contempo- 
raries can be distinctly traced to the rare quaUties of 
mind aud heart which met in the refined and sensitive 
nature of his mother. 

Five children were born in rapid succession to 
Robert and Maria Smith. Robert Percy — better 
known to the world by the famihar household name, 
which clung to him through life, of " Bobus " — was 
born in 1770 ; Sydney, as we have already seen, a year 
later; Cecil in 1772 ; Oourtenay in 1773 ; and Maria 
in 1774. As this is not a history of the Smith family, 
but only of the most brilliant member of it, it may not 
be out of place if some reference is here made to those 
who, in the same home, began together the battle of 
life, ere we pass on to pay undivided attention to the 



OF THE KEY. SYDNEY SMITH. 5 

character and career of the man whose genius has 
awakened wide-spread interest in that household group. 
After the death of Mrs. Smith, which occurred in 1802, 
Maria devoted herself entirely to her father. In many 
respects she resembled her mother, especially in the 
gentleness and unselfishness which marked her cha- 
racter, and though always more or less of an invalid, 
that fact did not check her sympathy with others or 
hinder those services which it was her delight to render. 
She died under her father's roof at Bath in the year 
1816, and next to the old man himself no one mourned 
her loss more keenly than Sydney, though all her 
brothers were warmly attached to her. 

The four sons, born in such a home, were uncom- 
monly well equipped with mental and moral endow- 
ments for the course which lay before them. From 
their father they gained courage, self-reliance, deter- 
mination, and impetuous energy of spirit ; from their 
mother, quickness of perception, delicacy of feeling, 
and brilliancy of expression. All the lads soon gave 
evidence of considerable talent, and three of them were 
industrious and eager to excel ; Cecil, however, at this 
period of his life was frolicsome, idle, and careless. 
They were precocious lads, and read and wrangled like 
grown-up men, and forsook boyish romps in order to 
devour books or to discuss questions which were far 
beyond their years. The consequence was that many 
boys of their age grew shy of them, and slunk away 
abashed, unable to hold their own against these fierce 
young reasoners. The usual result followed ; the 
young Smiths, one and all, grew very conceited and 
overbearing until the summer of 1782, when their 
eJ'ratic father — with more than his usual wisdom — 



6 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

suddenly pounced down upon them, and packed them 
off to learn their limit and to find their level on the 
crowded forms of a great public school. 

As there was only a year between Bobus and Sydney, 
Mr. Smith determined to send them to different schools, 
and to entrust each of them with the care of a younger 
brother. Under this arrangement Bobus and Cecil 
went to Eton, and Sydney and Courtenay to Winchester. 
Sydney had previously spent some years at an excellent 
preparatory school at Southampton, conducted by a 
clergyman of the name of Marsh. His father at that 
time was living at the village of South Stoneham, near 
Southampton, and Sydney, at the age of six, was sent 
to Mr. Marsh's school in that town. It is perhaps 
worthy of passing note that old Mr. Smith, who 
evidently believed that variety is the spice of life, was 
" settled " at no less than eighteen different places in 
England before he found a final resting-place at 
Bishop's Lydiard. The register of Winchester School 
shows that Sydney Smith was admitted as a scholar on 
the 19th of July, 1782, and when he began his career 
within its walls — a quick-witted, ambitious boy of 
eleven — there is evidence enough that he was already 
a lad of promise, and not deficient in either pluck or 
persistency. 

Winchester College, when Sydney Smith entered it, 
a little more than a hundred years ago, was under the 
control of Dr. Joseph Wharton, the friend of Johnson, 
Goldsmith, and Burke, and himself a conspicuous, rather 
than a brilliant member of the little group of men of 
letters, who moved like satellites around the burly "Sul- 
tan of English literature " in the closing years of his 
reign. Wharton, who probably owed his position at Win- 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 7 

Chester to his well-known translation of Virgil, though 
a finished classical scholar, was a very indifferent 
schoolmaster. It is one thing to be learned and 
accomplished, but quite another matter to be able to 
instil, not only knowledge, but an enthusiasm for it, 
into the minds of listless and reluctant boys. Dr. 
Wharton greatly preferred London to Winchester, and 
the society of the literary circles of the metropolis to 
that of the sixth form of the school, and as the master 
himself did not throw much ardour into his work, the 
majority of his pupils were quite content to follow his 
example. William Howley, afterwards Archbishop of 
Canterbury, was one of the head boys at Winchester 
when Sydney Smith entered the school ; and when the 
latter proceeded to Oxford, in 1789, he found his former 
associate in high repute at New College, and already 
well advanced on the road to preferment. When they 
were both old men, Sydney Smith, in his first Letter to 
Archdeacon Singleton, alluded, in a sly reminiscence, 
to his acquaintance in their Winchester days with 
the Primate : " I was at school and college with the 
Archbishop of Canterbury. Fifty-three years ago he 
knocked me down with the chessboard for checkmating 
him, and now he is attempting to take away my patron- 
age. I believe these are the only two acts of violence 
he ever committed in his life." The subject of the 
Ecclesiastical Commission was not the first or the most 
important question on which the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury and the Canon of St. Paul's had found themselves 
in hostile camps ; for Dr. Howley stoutly opposed the 
Catholic Emancipation Bill in 1829 as mimical to the 
interests of the Church, and the Reform Bill two years 
later as fraught with peril to the Constitution ; as for 



8 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Sydney Smith, there was no more ardent friend than 
he to both measures in the ranks of the clerical 
profession. 

The Winchester lads of that period seem to have 
been half-starved, and the young and timid amongst 
them found themselves in an evil case. The remem- 
brance of what he had endured there made an indelible 
impression on the mind of Sydney Smith, and even in 
old age he was accustomed to kindle into indignant 
eloquence whenever he was led to recount his .school- 
boy experiences of hunger, hardship, and abuse. The 
cane was skilfully and powerfully handled in the 
Winchester of those days, and was regarded as a 
stimulus to mental exertion, and a spur to learning. 
Neglected, browbeaten, and half -fed, the buoyant 
spirits of even the young Smiths proved unequal to 
the strain, and poor little Courtenay — a lad of more 
mettle than the friendless child who, two cen- 
turies earlier, carved " Dulce domum " on a tree 
and then died broken-hearted — twice ran away, un- 
able any longer to endure the sorrows of his lot. A 
chance incident, which Lady Holland relates, supplied 
Sydney with a more worthy incentive to learning than 
that which was afforded by his preceptor's angry 
frown or lifted rod. One day a visitor to the school, 
who found him during play-hours absorbed in the 
study of Virgil, gave the lad a shilling, and with 
it a few kind words of sympathy and praise. " Clever 
boy, clever boy," exclaimed the stranger, " that is the 
way to conquer the world ! " Such unlooked-for en- 
couragement broke like a gleam of sunshine across the 
dreary and troubled life of the neglected boy, and 
roused within a capable heart the laudable ambition 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 9 

for distinction. Sydney Smitli never forgot that man, 
and to the end of his life he maintained that it was not 
only just but wise to " hold such in reputation." The 
stranger quickly finished his survey of the playground, 
and went his way, little dreaming of the good which 
his pleasant words had accomplished ; whilst the lad 
he had cheered soon afterwards rose to the proud 
position of a prefect of the school. Even Courtenay 
plucked up heart, and began to appear at the top of the 
class lists, until at length the Smiths were so victorious 
in the school that the other lads declared in a round- 
robin, which they had the audacity to send to Dr. 
Wharton, that they would try no longer for the prizes 
if Sydney and Courtenay were allowed to compete, as 
" they always gained them." That this assertion was 
at least founded on fact is clearly proved by the state- 
ment that Courtenay four years in succession carried off 
one of the two gold medals annually awarded by the 
Crown for the best compositions in Latin verse and 
prose. 

Among the eighteen prefects of "Winchester the 
prefect of the Hall stands first ; he is the governor of 
the school among the boys, and all their communica- 
tions with the head master pass through him. It 
was this position — the most responsible and honour- 
able which a Winchester scholar can gain — that Sydney 
Smith held in the closing year of his stay there. 
Foremost in work, the young Smiths were also fore- 
most in play, and an amusing incident in the latter 
direction has fortunately escaped oblivion. Dr. 
Wharton, whilst pacing solemnly round one night, 
surprised the " clever boy " of the school in the act of 
making a catapult in the flickering lamplight. The 



10 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

great man in blissful ignorance of the motive which, 
had prompted such labours, graciously stopped and 
condescended to praise his pupil's ingenuity. Sydney 
felt not a little guilty under the doctor's commenda- 
tions, for the truth was that the weapon of aggressive 
warfare, which his skilful fingers were constructing, 
was designed to bring about the swift destruction 
of a certain well-fed turkey belonging to the master, 
whose plump appearance had at length tempted the 
ravenous youths beyond the point of further resis- 
tance. 

Whilst Sydney and Courtenay were thus distin- 
guishing themselves in various ways at Winchester, 
Bobus and Cecil were pursuing an almost identical 
course at Eton. More especially was this the case 
with Bobus, who was renowned at school for his 
classical attainments, and for the ability he displayed 
in the composition of Latin verse. Amongst his class- 
mates at Eton were John Hookham Frere and George 
Cannmg, and the youths who afterwards became Lord 
Holland, Lord Carlisle, and Lord Liverpool. Though 
only a matter of conjecture, it seems more than likely 
that Sydney Smith's introduction at Holland House in 
the early period of his London life, and the welcome 
which met him at Castle Howard, when circumstances 
placed him at its gates a few years later, sprang in the 
first instance out of his brother's acquaintance at Eton 
with Lord Holland and Lord Carlisle. With Frer^ and 
Canning, Bobus was on terms of close friendship, and 
as they were all three full of life and literary ambition, 
they started a magazine, in the autumn of 1786, called 
the Microcosm. Frere was seventeen, Bobus and Can- 
ning a year younger when they launched their venture 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 11 

upon the world. The Microcosm had. a brief, but on 
the whole a brilliant career ; the summer vacation of 
1787 was, however, too great a trial for its strength to 
survive, and it slipped out of existence somewhere in 
the dog-days of that year, amid the regrets of many 
youthful admirers. Years afterwards, curious to re- 
late, the light which Canning's fame cast upon it led 
Charles Knight to republish the schoolboy essays of 
the great statesman and his friends, and the Microcosm 
thus produced in book form ran swiftly through no less 
than five editions, the last of which was published in 
1825. 

The Microcosm, by " Gregory Griffin, Student of 
the College of Eton," began to appear in the autumn 
of 1786, and after going on prosperously week by week 
until the following summer, symptoms that a decline 
had set in began to reveal themselves. At length the 
thirty-ninth number contained a melancholy statement 
concerning the alarming illness of the once vivacious 
Gregory, and a week later the climax was reached 
when, not only was there an account of his last mo- 
ments given, but also a copy of his last will and tes- 
tament. This document was signed " B and C," the 
first letter being that under which George Canning 
wrote, and the second that under which the effusions 
of Bobus Smith appeared. Four lads were responsible 
for " Gregory Griffin," and each of them contributed 
something characteristic to his vigorous personality; 
" B " and " C " just named, who were the chief sources 
of his inspiration, and "A" and " D," or in other 
words, John Smith and Hookham Frere. It is not 
difficult to trace the influence of the Rambler in this 
unusually clever and ambitious school magazine. 



12 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

The little magazine was not allowed to disap- 
pear without receiving a word of praise from an 
unexpected and exalted quarter. Its readers were 
not all Eton lads, for the Microcosm had found its 
way to the library-table in the neighbouring Castle 
of Windsor, and Queen Charlotte had read number 
after number with growing approbation. The fact 
that their magazine had won the royal favour came to 
the knowledge of the young editors under the following 
circumstances. In the early summer of 1787, Sydney 
was spending a few days at Eton on a visit to his 
brother Bobus, and one Sunday evening the two lads 
went on the terrace at Windsor and mingled with a 
great concourse of people who were patiently waiting 
there in the hope of catching a passing glimpse of the 
King and Queen. Boylike, the brothers had pushed 
their way to the front of the crowd, and when the 
royal party appeared, her Majesty, who seems to have 
made previous inquiry concerning the youthful authors, 
despatched an attendant to ask if the boyish spectator 
was the lad who wrote in the Microcosm under the nom 
deplume of "Gregory Griffin." The Queen had seen 
a notice in the last number of the magazine announcing 
the fact that the publication was about to cease, and 
hence when the veritable " Gregory Griffin " ap- 
proached in the person of Bobus Smith, she said to 
the delighted young scribe, who could only bow his 
acknowledgments, " I am sorry, Mr. Smith, to hear 
of the approaching death of ' Gregory Griffin.' His 
papers have been to me a great pleasure, and I am 
grieved to lose so agreeable a companion." Sydney — 
who from childhood to old age was devotedly attached 
to Bobus — was proud to be able to relate to excited 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 13 

groups of Eton and Winchester lads the story of the 
Queen's recognition of his brother's ability. 

On leaving Eton, Bobus went to King's College, 
Cambridge, where he distinguished himself by his re- 
markable proficiency as a classic. He took his degree 
of Master of Arts in 1797, and on the 4th of July in 
the same year was called to the Bar by the Honourable 
Society of Lincoln's Inn, and joined the Western 
Circuit. A few months later he married Miss Caro- 
line Vernon, daughter of R. Vernon, Esq., M.P. for 
Tavistock, and Evelyn, Countess Dowager of Upper 
Ossory, and daughter of Earl Gower. Miss Vernon 
was half-sister to his friend Lord Henry Petty 
(afterwards third Marquis of Lansdowne), and they 
were married in the library at Bowood on the 9th of 
December, 1797, by Sydney, who had entered the 
Church a year or two previously. Through the in- 
fluence of Lord Lansdowne and Sir Francis Barinar, 
Bobus obtained the lucrative appointment of Advocate- 
General at Calcutta. He left England in 1803, and 
after a residence in India of seven years returned home 
with a fortune, whilst still on the right side of forty. 
A sentence from Sir James Mackintosh's journal is 
enough to show how highly he was esteemed in the 
East : — " I hear frequently of Bobus ; his fame amongst 
the natives is greater than that of any pundit since the 
days of Menu." Sir James, who was in India at the 
same time as Bobus, declared that he found him always 
merry and always kind. Upon his return from India 
Mr. Smith settled at Saville Row, London, and his 
house there continued to be his home until the day of 
his death, and Sydney was very frequently his guest 
during the years when the pleasures of society in 



14 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

London wer-e enhanced by contrast with the back- 
ground of solitude at Foston. 

At the General Election of 1812, Mr. Robert Smith 
entered Parliament as member for Grantham, but he 
never excelled as a public speaker, although his 
language, according to Canning, was the " essence of 
English." The fact seems to have been that he was 
too sensitive as a public man, and too fastidious as a 
Parliamentary debater to make a reputation in the 
House of Commons. At the General Election of 1818, 
he contested Lincoln, but was defeated ; but two years 
later he was returned as member for that city, and sat 
as its representative until he finally retired from 
Parliament at the Dissolution of 1826. Bobus Smith 
retained to the close of his life the reputation which 
he won in India of being " merry and kind," and few 
men were more popular in London society sixty years 
ago than the member for Lincoln. His wit was pro- 
verbial, and his conversational powers excited the ad- 
miration of the brilliant Madame de Stael. Sydney 
Smith is responsible for the statement that his brother 
Robert in George III.'s time translated the family 
motto of Viscount Sidmouth — " Libertas sub 7'ege pio,^^ 
in the following manner — " The pious king has got 
liberty mi der."^ When Bobus saw Van sittart (Lord 
Bexley) enter the House of Commons in the company 
of the great economist, Joseph Hume, he exclaimed, 
according to Sydney, " Here comes penny wise and 
pound foolish."^ Another anecdote, which has not 
always been correctly told, is taken in the present 

^ Life of E. H. Barbara, vol. i. p. 25 i. 
' Ibid. vol. i. p. 291. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 15 

instance from an unpublished manuscript, preserved 
in the library at Munden, in the handwriting of the 
younger daughter of Sydney Smith, the late Mrs. 
Nathaniel Hibbert. Bobus Smith and Sir Henry 
Holland were talking of the comparative merits of the 
learned professions in affording agreeable members of 
society. " Your profession " (the law) " certainly does 
not make angels of men," said Sir Henry. " No," 
quietly answered Bobus, as he glanced with an inno- 
cent air at the physician, — "no — but yours does!" 
Bobus was born a year before Sydney, and died exactly 
a fortnight after him, March 10, 1845 ; " pleasant in 
their lives, in their deaths they were not divided." 
His son, the Right Hon. Robert Vernon Smith, M.P. 
for Northampton, a Lord of the Treasury under Mel- 
bourne, was raised to the peerage as Baron Lyveden, 
and the present Lord Lyveden is the grandson of 
Bobus Smith. 

Sydney Smith's three brothers were all, at one time 
or another, settled in India. The Chairman of the 
East India Company, at the beginning of the century, 
was a Mr. Roberts, with whom the father of the lads 
was on terms of intimate friendship, and under his 
auspices both Cecil and Courtenay followed their 
eldest brother's example and went to India. Cecil 
obtained a writership at Madras, and eventually rose 
to be Accountant-General of the Province. He died 
at the Cape of Good Hope in 1814, whilst on his 
journey home. Courtenay, who left Winchester a 
mere lad, with the reputation of great linguistic ability, 
obtained through Mr. Roberts' influence a writership 
at Calcutta. He carried the studious habits acquired 
at Winchester to the East, and in a comparatively 



16 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

short time became known as one of the best Oriental 
scholars in India. He rose to the rank of a Supreme 
Judge, and was appointed to a district nearly three 
times as large as that of all England, where he was 
exceedingly popular with the natives. He amassed 
considerable wealth, and, after an honourable career 
in the East, returned to England. At his death, which 
occurred suddenly in 1839, Sydney, who inherited a 
third of his fortune, found himself, to his own great 
surprise, in affluent circumstances. 

Sydney Smith, like most brilliant Wykehamists, 
proceeded to New College, Oxford. He stood third 
on the roll for admission as a scholar at the election 
held in the autumn of 1 788, and on the occurrence of 
a vacancy was admitted on the 5th of February, 
1789. At the end of his second year of residence 
he obtained a fellowship, which he held for nine 
years, and which he relinquished upon his marriage in 
1800. 

Dr. Sewell, the present "Warden of New, who has 
kindly furnished the above facts from the archives of 
the college, states that he is not aware of any records, 
or even traditions, respecting the years spent by 
Sydney Smith in Oxford, and adds that he was pre- 
cluded from obtaining any university honours in the 
schools by the so-called privilege enjoyed by the Fel- 
lows of New at that time, of being examined in their 
own college for degrees, without being required to 
pass the University Examination. Even by the mem- 
bers of his own family surprisingly little is known of 
this period of Sydney Smith's career, and at this late 
hour of the day it is not at all probable that any fresh 
information on the subject will ever come to light. 



OF THE KEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 17 

He seldom referred in after-days to his experience at 
the University, and there is a significant dearth of 
allusion in his published works to this phase of his life. 
The five years he spent at Oxford was a time of 
difficulty, anxiety, and suspense ; a period when the 
responsibilities of life were first distinctly seen, and 
the privations of a straitened lot first keenly felt. At 
the age of twenty he obtaiued a fellowship of lOOZ. 
a year, and from that time forward ceased to make 
any demand on his father for pecuniary aid. To a 
student at Oxford, lOOZ. a year was a most inadequate 
pittance, but from 1791 until he entered the Church, 
three years later, it was all that Sydney Smith had to 
rely on. His father's resources were, at that time, 
considerably taxed by the claims made upon him by 
his other children. Robert was studying for the Bar, 
and Cecil and Courtenay,, both of whom inherited the 
roving propensities of their sire, were already restlessly 
eager to try their fortune in the East. Mrs. Smith, 
moreover, was gradually slipping into a delicate state 
of health ; the long suspense and anxiety which she 
had endured at the outset of her married life, and the 
uncertainty and fear which her husband's impulsive 
and ill-balanced temperament had thrown into its 
entire course, had evoked tendencies which she was no 
longer able to withstand. It seems more than likely, 
therefore, that Sydney, who could never do enough 
for his mother, undertook, with that self-reliance and 
generosity which afterwards became so conspicuous in 
his character, to free the harassed family exchequer of 
all further claims immediately after gaining the modest 
emoluments attached to his fellowship. But whatever 
the reason may have been, it is at least certain that 

c 



18 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

from 1791 he ceased, directly or indirectly, to tax his 
father's purse. 

Strictly conscientious in money-matters, the poor 
student resolutely reduced his expenditure within the 
narrow limits of his scanty income, and doubtless he 
found the endeavour very hard at times to make, as he 
expressed it, " sixpence assume the importance and do 
the work of a shilling." Like Samuel Johnson, how- 
ever, half a century earlier, and scores of sturdy stu- 
dents before and since, Sydney Smith preferred " short 
commons and a rusty coat " to the galling burden of 
debt, or the bitter bread of dependence. New College, 
ninety or a hundred years ago, had not the most dis- 
tinguished reputation for learning ; but if the Fellows 
did not yield that " attention to reading " which their 
lettered seclusion suggests, they at least fulfilled 
another Apostolic injunction, for they certainly were 
" given to hospitality." Sydney, however, was too 
proud to accept invitations which it was not in his 
power to return, and he seems therefore to have held 
aloof — from pride as much as from necessity, to an 
extent that must have been very trying to a man of his 
instincts — from the social side of university life. 
There is one golden deed associated with the straitened, 
anxious years spent at Oxford, which reveals the good- 
ness of his heart, and shines with heightened beauty 
because of the dreary setting which surrounds it. 
Courtenay, the little scamp, less careful than his elder 
brother, ran up a bill at school for 30/., and was too 
timid to confess the fact to his father, who by this time 
had enough in hand in fitting out his younger sons for 
India. Sydney, unable to bear the sight of the lad's 
distress, generously came to his rescue, and sent him 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 19 

off to seek and find liis fortune in the East, witli the 
reassuring promise that he would pay his Winches- 
ter bills ; and little by little, in trivial yet costly 
instalments, the kind brother bravely kept his word. 
How costly those instalments were, let his own words, 
now first published, reveal : — " I did it with my heart's 
blood ; it was the third of my whole income, for, though 
I never in my life owed a farthing which I was unable 
to pay, yet my 100/. a year was very difficult to spread 
over the wants of a college life." 

Curiously enough, Francis Jeffrey was at Queen's 
College, Oxford, during part of the time that Sydney 
Smith was studying at New; but the future colla- 
borateurs appear never to have met until they were 
thrown together a few years later in Edinburgh. The 
moral tone of the University, as indeed of society 
in general, was extremely low at the close of last 
century. " It is possible to acquire nothing in this 
place," wrote Jeffrey, with grim Scotch humour, to a 
friend, " except praying and drinking." 'Nor was 
Sydney Smith's testimony less emphatic. In a short 
article, entitled " Modern Changes," which he wrote 
when a gray-haired Canon of St. Paul's, he declares 
that when he started in life, one-third at least of the 
gentlemen of England, even in the best society, were 
always drunk. 

Quitting Oxford in 1794, he was called to face the 
first serious question of life — the choice of a profes- 
sion. His personal predilections at this stage of his 
career would have led him to follow Bobus to the 
Bar, but he was compelled, through the insufficiency of 
the means at his disposal, to abandon his dreams of 
forensic distinction. There can be no question that 



20 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

his brilliant gifts would have soon won reputation and 
reward for their possessor, had he devoted himself to 
the difficult tasks of a public pleader. His silvery- 
voice, his dignified appearance, his unfailing self- 
command, his masculine common sense, his occa- 
sional eloquence, his ever-present humour, formed a 
union of strength and beauty which would under any 
circumstances have been appreciated by an English 

jury. 

Old Mr. Smith, however, evidently thought that one 
lawyer in the family was enough, and therefore brushed 
aside the first hint of Sydney's proposition with the 
somewhat harsh exclamation, " You may be a college 
tutor or a parson ! " Sydney told his father that 
whilst he would have preferred the law above all other 
professions, he was very sensible that he was making 
a great sacrifice to maintain Bobus at the Bar, and 
that he should deem it both selfish and unfair to tax 
him in the same way himself. He accordingly an- 
nounced his intention of entering the Church. " The 
law," Sydney Smith was accustomed to say, "is 
decidedly the best profession for a young man if he 
has anything in him. In the Church a man is thrown 
into life with his hands tied, and bid to swim ; he does 
well if he keeps his head above water." That remark, 
true perhaps in the main, required, even when it was 
first uttered, some qualification ; and in these days at 
least few men, if any, enter the Church with their 
hands tied, unless indeed they themselves have fast- 
ened the knot. At the same time it must be admitted 
that if Sydney Smith entered the Church with little 
enthusiasm, and not a few misgivings, he gallantly 
addressed himself, to the best of his ability, to its 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



21 



noble and self-denying work, and evinced greater 
patience and cheerfulness in the midst of the cares 
and trials to which his new position inevitably exposed 
him, than many a man displays who has deliberately 
chosen the sacred vocation. 




GATEWAY or WINCHESTER COLLEGE. 



22 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER II. 

1794—1800. 
Curate at Nether Avon — Tutor to Michael Beach — Marriage. 

It was in the spring of 1794 that Sydney Smith was 
ordained on his appointment to the curacy of Nether 
Avon, a small village six miles distant from the 
ancient but sleepy town of Amesbury, in Wiltshire. 
He was three-and-twenty when he accepted this posi- 
tion, and settled at Nether Avon as curate in sole 
charge. The change from university life at Oxford to 
a curate's lowly round of labour in a remote Wiltshire 
village, peopled with farm-labourers, was not a little 
trying ; and it would be difficult to imagine a more 
uncongenial lot for a young man of Sydney Smith's 
spirit, culture, and tastes than that which Nether 
Avon afforded. The village was not on any of the 
coaching-roads ; and nothing, except the arrival of a 
market-cart from Salisbury once a week, broke the 
dull monotony which reigned over the place. No 
meat was to be obtained except when this butcher's 
shop on wheels rumbled with noisy importance into 
the half-deserted village street. The arrival of un- 
expected visitors on any other day than that on which 
the cart from Salisbury drew up would have driven 
the perplexed curate to the verge of despair ; and even 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 23 

under ordinary circumstances, lie sometimes narrowly 
escaped compulsory and most unwelcome vegetarianism. 
Neither books nor attractive scenery were within his 
reach ; and, with the exception of three months which 
the squire spent annually at the Hall, there was scarcely 
any society above the rank of the parish clerk. 

Nether Avon is only a few miles from Stonehenge ; 
and the dreary and uncultivated downs of Salisbury 
Plain, with their vacant and oppressive spaces, shut 
the young curate out from a world with which he 
had so much in common. Happily, even at this dis- 
tance of time, there is evidence enough to prove that 
if Sydney Smith was occasionally disheartened by his 
new surroundings, he never allowed the sense of lone- 
liness or lack of sympathy to stand in the way of the 
manful discharge of his duties. He spent between 
two and three years in Nether Avon, and finally quitted 
the spot in March, 1797. There are not many parishes 
in England where curates are remembered after nearly 
ninety years have rolled away, and exceedingly few 
men in a similar position contrive to leave a favour- 
able impression behind them for so long a period, 
even when their personal influence has been exerted 
in a neighbourhood for twenty instead of two years. 
Sydney Smith, however, furnished an exception to the 
general rule ; and a tradition, which still lingers in the 
cottages of Nether Avon, is responsible for the state- 
ment that he was fond of the children and young 
people, and took pains to teach them. 

The schools which he was instrumental in establish- 
ing on weekdays and Sundays attest the truth of this 
kindly tradition, and form an enduring memorial of 
his interest in the young of his parish. The condition 



24 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

of the poor in all parts of the country at the close of 
last century was in many respects most deplorable, 
and the existing means of education,' especially in rural 
districts, were not only very defective, but also inade- 
quate in the extreme. Commerce was crippled with 
unjust and tyrannical laws, and taxation was increased 
by long and costly campaigns. The labouring classes 
— ignorant, depressed, and in many cases, debased — 
had few opportunities of improving their own condi- 
tion, or even of shielding the children who followed in 
their steps from a repetition of the same hard and 
dismal experiences of life. Theophilus Lindsay, Robert 
Raikes, Hannah More, and other benevolent people 
had already done something by precept and example, 
in their different spheres, to awaken in the public 
mind an intelligent and tender concern for the thou- 
sands of neglected and destitute children scattered 
over the land. One of the earliest and most enthu- 
siastic friends which the new movement found amongst 
the clergy of the Established Church was Dr. Shute, 
Bishop of Salisbury, who, in 1789, brought the subject 
before his diocese, and did all in his power to advance 
the noble and large-hearted scheme which will ever be 
associated in the public mind with the honoured name 
of the Gloucester printer. When Sydney Smith — 
fresh from Oxford — set foot in Nether Avon, the good 
bishop's zeal had not met in that parish at least with 
any response, and it was only when the new clergy- 
man, at the suggestion of the wife of the squire, 
took the matter up, that the first Sunday school was 
established in the locality. 

The squire of Nether Avon, when Sydney Smith 
set foot in the parish, was Mr. Hicks-Beach, of Wil- 



OF THE KEY. SYDNEY SMITH. 26 

liamstrip Park, Gloucestershire, and Member of Par- 
liament for the now extinct constituency of Cirencester. 
The Beach family first settled in Wiltshire at Fittleton, 
the adjoining parish to Nether Avon, about the year 
1650. William Beach, the last of the male line, 
purchased in 1760 the estate at Nether Avon, from 
the Duke of Beaufort, who had used the mansion — 
Nether Avon House — as a hunting-box. On the death 
of Mr. Beach in 1790, he was succeeded ia the pro- 
perty by Mr. Michael Hicks, who had married, some 
years previously, his daughter and heiress. Mr. Hicks 
assumed the additional surname of Beach, and the 
Right Hon. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Bart., M.P., is 
the great-grandson of the squire who befriended Sydney 
Smith, and the grandson of the youth whom the latter 
accompanied to Edinburgh. 

Mr. Hicks-Beach, who was himself a shrewd and 
cultivated man, was not long in discovering the 
sterling qualities of mind and heart which lay beneath 
the bright and clever talk of the young Oxford graduate, 
and whilst he and his family were at Nether Avon 
House, Sydney had no reason to complain of being 
dull, though when they were in Grloucester shire, or at 
their town house in Harley Street, affairs assumed 
another shape. However, even then, though deprived 
of cultivated and congenial society, the young clergyman 
enjoyed at least some of the privileges of the place, 
and the "Yew-Tree Walk/' in the grounds of Nether 
Avon House, is stiir pointed out to the visitor as the 
favourite path where— lost in thought — Sydney Smith 
was accustomed to pace to and fro, from day to day. 

Anxious to do all in his power to improve the con- 
dition of the people around him, Mr. Hicks-Beach, 



26 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



soon after succeeding to the property, requested the 
steward of his estates to make some investigations 
concerning the poor of Nether Avon. The result of 
these inquiries is contained in a curious and lengthy 
statement, entitled, " Mr. Yerrey, the Steward's List 




THE YEW-TREE VTALK. 



of Nether Avon Poor— 1793." This document gives 
brief particulars of no less than fifty families or house- 
holders, and reveals a deplorable amount of vice, indo- 
lence, and abject poverty. Two or three extracts will 
suffice to show the state of things which existed : — 

No. 14, a young girl, "gets sixteen pounds of 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 27 

spinning work done a month, wliicli amounts to only 
four shillings." No. 21, a man aged fifty-five, "is 
very unhealthy. He works for Mr. Lee, and receives 
only four shillings per week. Last week young 

Farmer beat this poor old man with a large stick, 

and had it not been for his having on a great-coat, his 
daughter reports he would have crippled him." No. 
43, a man " with wife and four children (the eldest 
nine years of age), works for Mr. Lee at six shillings a 
week," &c. &c. According to the steward's list many 
of the people were almost dependent on parish relief, 
and not a man mentioned in that long catalogue was 
receiving wages amounting to ten shillings a week. 
Mrs. Beach forwarded this document to Sydney Smith 
soon after his arrival at Nether Avon, in order that he 
might go through the list and add his own opinions 
on any of the cases with which he was personally 
acquainted. This request elicited the following 
characteristic comments : — 

Mr. Sydney Smith's knowledge of the parish is 
very limited, but in compliance with Mrs. Beach's 
desire, he will follow Mr. Yerrey's list, and annex a 
short comment upon those families of which he has 
had any opportunity of forming a judgment : — 

He thinks No. 3 in a wretched condition from 
mismanagement and extravagance. 

No. 4, in a similar state from ignorance bordering 
on brutality. 

No. 6, industrious, and deserving protection. 

No. 8, deceitful, but decent, and struggles against 
her miserable poverty. 

No. 14, wretched from their Irish extraction, from 
numbers, from disease, from habits of idleness. 



28 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

No. 17. Very deserving. 

No. 18. Weak, witless people, totally wretched, 
without sense to extricate themselves from their 
wretchedness. 

No. 22. Industrious, and, I believe, deserving. 

No. 24. Very neat, industrious, and deserving. 

No. 25. Aliment for Newgate, food for the halter, 
a ragged, wretched, savage, stubborn race. 

No. 27. Perfectly wretched and helpless. 

No. 32. The wife of this man is an object of pity. 

No. 38. A good, meritorious woman. 

No. 43. A good family, and merit your protection. 

No. 49. Good, worthy people ; and, as they have 
no wheat from the farmers, deserve encouragement. 

Mrs. H. Beach. 

Upon the arrival of this reply Mr. and Mrs. 
Beach invited him to visit them at Fairford Park, 
in order that they might confer together on the best 
methods of helping the poor of Nether Avon. In 
response to this invitation the following letter was 
despatched, and it is interesting, as showing the spirit 
in which the new curate regarded his work : — 

[i.] Nether Avon, July 26th, 1794. 

SiE, — I am extremely obliged to you for your 
kind invitation to Williamstrip. I mean to continue 
in my present situation for two years, and will cer- 
tainly jDay my compliments to you in Gloucestershire 
before the expiration of that time ; but I am afraid 
that it cannot be this summer, as I have engagements 
at "Winchester, Weymouth, Bath, and Oxford, and 
expect my brother at Nether Avon. My stock of 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 29 

theological doctrine, which, at present is most alarm- 
ingly small, will necessarily occupy a great deal of 
my time, and I mean to try if I cannot persuade the 
poor people to come to church, for really at present 
(as was said of Burke at Hastings' trial) my preaching 
is like the voice of one crying in the wilderness. You 
may assure, yourself, sir, that the parsonage-house, 
owing to the uncommon heat of the summer is per- 
fectly dry. I have suffered a little from the smell of 
paint, but that is entirely gone off at present. 

I am, sir, with the greatest respect, your obliged, 
humble servant, 

Sydney Smith. 

Mr. Beach. 

As the church and parsonage-house are alluded to 
in this letter, it may be as well to say a word here 
about them both. Nether Avon Church is substan- 
tially the same as it was in Sydney Smith's time, 
although the interior has been improved in various 
ways. Its situation — -just below Nether Avon House 
— is an extremely pretty one, and in the summer it is 
almost hidden from sight by the surrounding foliage. 
The chief point of interest is a handsome Norman 
arch at the west end ; the rest of the edifice is of 
later date. Close by, the placid Avon ripples through 
the valley, and the river, with the tall trees which 
fringe its banks, and the quaint old farm-house in the 
immediate neighbourhood, forms a charming picture. 
The country all around is bare and open, but the 
village nestles among the trees which abound in the 
quiet valley of the Avon.^ The best description of 

^ It is perhaps worthy of passing remark that the Eev. Lancelot 



30 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Nether Avon which can, perhaps, be given, is that 
coQvejed in Sydney Smith's own words, which are 
still quoted with a smile in the locality, " A pretty 
feature in a plain (Salisbury) face." The present 
vicarage was erected some forty-five years ago, and 
the parsonage-house which Sydney occupied, and 




NETHER AVON HOUSE AND CHURCH. 



which was a very inferior building, has long since 
vanished. 

In the course of the autumn of 1794 he received a 
second, and more urgent invitation to visit his new 
friends at Williamstrip Park, and the invitation was 
accompanied by the offer of a horse, on which to per- 

Addison (afterwards Dean of Lichfield) was Eector for many years 
of the neighbouring parish of Milston, At this obscure village on 
the Amesbury road, his son Joseph Addison, one of the greatest 
masters of English prose, was born on the 1st of May, 1672. 
Milston and Nether Avon are within three miles of each other, and 
though themselves places of no reputation, both are thus associated 
with the memorv of world-renowned men. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 31 

form the journey between Nether Avon and Fairford, 
a distance of about fifty miles. The invitation was 
accepted, but there were still obstacles in the way, as 
the accompanying letter proves ; it gives an amusing 
glimpse of the embarrassments of a journey by road at 
the end of last century : — 

[ii.] ISTetlier Avon, 1794 

Dear Sir, — If 1 can get my churches ^ served for 
one Sunday, I shall have great pleasure in coming to 
see you at Wilhamstrip. I rather think I shall be 
able to effect this ; and if I do not write to you to the 
contrary, I will be with you next Monday night. Your 
offer of a horse to carry my portmanteau I cannot 
accept, and for two reasons, which I think will justify 
me in not accepting it. The first is, you have no 
horse here ; the next, I have no portmanteau. I shall 
send my things to Bath in a small trunk, from thence 
by the mail to Fairford, from whence I hope the 
master of the inn will have ingenuity enough to for- 
ward it by a porter to Wilhamstrip. For this acute 
and well-contrived scheme of sending my things, I 
arrogate to myself very little merit; it was chiefly 
contrived by your charioteer — -a man of senatorial 
gravity and prudence. I beg my compliments to Mrs. 
Beach. 

I am, my dear sir, yours very sincerely, 

Sydney Smith. 

Michael Hicks-Beach, Esq., Williamstrip Park, 
Fairford, Gloucestershire. 

"^ The curate in charge of Nether Avon had also to conduct a 
service every Sunday m the neighbouring church of Fittleton at 
that time. 



32 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Sydney Smith's stay at Williamstrip on this occasion 
was the first of many pleasant visits there, and long 
after he had emerged from the obscurity of Nether 
Avon his intimacy with Mr. and Mrs. Beach proved 
a mutual gratification. 

When he arrived at Williamstrip he found his 
patrons greatly concerned with the condition of the 
poor of Nether Avon, and willing to do all in their 
power to elevate the people on their estate, and to 
help them to help themselves. Various methods were 
discussed, and, amongst others, the desirability of 
establishing schools in the parish, so that the children 
who were springing up might be trained in habits of 
order, self-reliance, and thrift. The religious con- 
dition of the villagers was one of lamentable apathy, 
and it was therefore determined that the first thing to 
accomplish was the establishment of a Sunday-school 
— an institution which at that time had the charm of 
absolute novelty to the rustic mind. Sydney threw 
himself heartily into this scheme, and returned to 
Nether Avon eager to carry it into efiect ; but "human 
life," as he afterwards sagely remarked, " is full of 
tedious and prosaic difficulties which are felt, but 
cannot be stated," and the consequence was that — in 
spite of his ardour — the winter rolled away before the 
Sunday-school became an accomplished fact. A paid 
teacher had to be engaged, for in those days the 
principles of Voluntaryism were but little understood 
by the people ; and the curate, with two churches to 
serve on Sunday, was, of course, unable to instruct 
the children in person. In the beginning of April he 
wrote at length to inform Mr. Beach of what had 
been done, and what was still needed. 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 33 

[hi.] Nether Avon, April 2nd, 1795. 

Dear Sir, — Upon my return from Batli, I began 
to carry into execution your plan of establishing a. 
Sunday-scliool at Nether Avon. Andrew Goulter, 
whom you mentioned as a man likely to undertake it, 
is going to quit the place. Bendall, the blacksmith, 
Harry Cozens (a tailor and cousin to the clerk), and 
Giles Harding have all applied for the appointment. 
The last I consider quite out of the question ; his wife 
cannot read, and he has no room fit to receive the 
children. Henry Cozens, in my opinion, is the most 
eligible. His wife reads, his brother reads, and his 
apprentice reads ; he has a good kitchen, some room 
in his shop, and his mother next door has a good 
kitchen, which may be filled with overflowings of 
the school, if it ever should overflow. I have men- 
tioned the salary you arranged with me to the ap- 
plicants, namely, 2s. per Sunday, and two score 
of faggots. The children will attend on Christmas 
Day and Good Friday. Is the master to be paid for 
those days ? It is impossible to find two rooms in the 
same house for boys and girls ; if they are put to 
different houses, the divided salary will be too small to 
induce any reputable man to accept it. The books 
that are wanted will be about sixty spelling-books 
(with easy lessons in reading at the end), beginning 
from the letters, and going on progressively in syllables; 
twenty New Testaments, and twenty Prayer-books. 
Miss Hannah More's books I think you will like very 
much if you look at them. They are 5s. per hundred ; 
if you will send me down 100 of them, I think I 
can distribute them with effect. The people who 

D 



34 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

had sittings in the great pew have given it up, and 
Munday is going to fit it up for the children. The 
people all express a great desire of sending their 
children to the school. The only farmer I have yet 
had an opportunity of speaking to is Farmer Munday ; 
he will contribute with great cheerfulness. I will talk 
to the farmers collectively at the vestry, and indivi- 
dually out of it. * * * A few forms will be wanted 
for the Sunday-school. AVill you empower me to 
order them? In the very hot weather, why might 
not the children be instructed in the church before and 
after service, instead of the little hot room in which 
they would otherwise be stuffed ? I shall mention it to 
the churchwardens, with your approbation. * * * 
Nothing can equal the profound, the immeasurable, 
the awful dulness of this place, in the which I lie, dead 
and buried, in hopes of a joyful resurrection in the 
year 1796. 

I am, my dear sir, yours sincerely, 

Sydney Smith. 

To Michael H. Beach, Esq., M.P., 
No. 28, Harley Street, London. 

The practical common sense of Sydney Smith is 
evinced in the suggestion that the children during the 
sultry weeks of summer, should be taught in tbe cool 
and spacious church, rather than be crowded into a 
"little hot room " to their own physical disadvantage, 
the teacher's discomfort, and the hindrance of the work 
itself. In the course of a few weeks he wrote a brief 
note to Mr. Beach, to thank him for attending to his re- 
quest about the books, and to report the beginnings of the 
enterprise : " I have received the books — a very ample 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 35 

supply, and thank you in the name of my sans culottes. 
They attend extremely well." One benevolent scheme 
not unfrequently paves the way (by revealmg the 
necessity) for another ; and the Sunday-school had 
not been long started in Nether Avon, before it became 
apparent by the bare-footed and ragged condition of 
many of the children, that other forms of help were 
also greatly needed. An Industrial School was accord- 
ingly established, which met on two or three nights in 
the week, and into it the girls and young women of 
the poorest families in the district were gathered, and 
taught by a competent person the homely mysteries of 
knitting, sewing, and darning, much to their own 
subsequent comfort and that of their obstreperous 
brothers. Taking " short views of life," Sydney did 
the work that was nearest, lowly though it seemed, 
and quietly awaited the issue of events. Toiling 
amongst the poor of a Wiltshire village with cheerful 
good- will, it was not long ere he convinced all about 
him, that he had in no mere ofiBcial sense their interests 
at heart, but was prepared to do anything which intelli- 
gence could suggest, or sympathy inspire to brighten 
and improve the condition of the people amongst whom 
his lot had been cast. During this season of busy ob- 
scurity there are proofs enough, that self-culture was 
not forgotten, nor was he to be tempted from his post 
under ordinary circumstances, except to pay flying 
visits to Bath to cheer his ailing mother. Meanwhile, 
all unknown to himself, this period of seclusion was 
abruptly to cease, and the curate of Nether Avon was 
to go forth to find elsewhere a wider field for the 
employment of the talents with which he was so richly 
endowed. 



36 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Sydney Smith was accustomed to advise "his friends 
to " keep in the grand and common road of Hfe," and 
it was when he himself was patiently treading the 
grand and common road of present duty, that honour- 
able release from the irksome monotony of a village 
curacy dawned suddenly upon him. Mr. Hicks-Beach 
was wishful that his eldest son, Michael Beach Hicks- 
Beach, should go for a year or two to one of the German 
universities in order that, under some competent 
direction, he might there carry on his studies, before 
proceeding to Christ Church, Oxford. Impressed with 
the ready scholarship as well as the natural ability of 
the young curate, whom, moreover, he greatly liked, 
he asked him to accompany his son on his travels in 
the two-fold capacity of tutor and friend. The offer 
was gladly accepted, and Sydney relinquished his 
curacy in the spring of 1797, and went to spend the 
summer with his father, who by this time had grown 
tired of Bath, and had established himself in the neigh- 
bourhood of Tiverton. 

Mr. Beach had requested Sydney Smith to make 
inquiries as to the best continental university for his 
son, and in August he wrote to convey the result of 
these investigations: — 

[iv.] Beaucliamp, Tiverton, Devonshire, 

August 23rd, 1797. 

My dear Sib, — Since I left you I have occupied 
myself in procuring, through various channels, infor- 
mation respecting the plan of which we arranged the 
outline at Williamstrip. T am induced, from the most 
respectable authority, to prefer Saxe Weimar to any 
other German university. The duke (who is himself 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 37 

an extremely well-informed, sensible man), has drawn 
to that town some of the most sensible men in Germany, 
who have by their example diffused there, a very strong 
spirit of improvement. From other accounts that I 
have received of this place, I will quote you Sir 
Thomas Rivers' : — " If I was to recommend a situation 
for a young man in Germany, it would be Weimar. 
The duke is an uncommonly well-informed, sensible 
man. He has assembled at his court the four heroes 
of German literature, Wieland, Goethe, Herder, and 
Schiller, besides many other well-informed men of 
inferior note. The society is agreeable, and has a 
literary turn; the English are very well received. 
There is no doubt that a young man well recommended, 
who appears anxious to please, and to improve him- 
self, would be readily introduced into any kind of 
society ; at the same time, a young buck, or a fox- 
hunter, would be laughed at and neglected." The 
sum you hinted at will do for our expenses extremely 
well. Choosing then, if you please, this for our place 
of destination, we will let my plan nap a little for the 
present. In the meantime I shall attack the German 
vigorously, and seize with avidity any information 
which may be useful to us. We have begun our 
harvest in this part of the world under bad auspices. 
The farmers complain they shall not get above twenty 
bushels of wheat an acre. I believe you would not be 
sorry to compound for this upon the hills. I very 
nearly lost mj place to Bath by the ingenuity of the 
young ploughman who arrived with my trunk through 
unknown and unbeaten tracks, about five minutes 
before the coach set off. Remember me very kindly 
to Mrs. Beach and all the family, not forgetting of 



38 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

course my intended pupil. Adieu, my dear sir, and 
believe me yours very sincerely, 

Sydney Smith. 

M. Hicks-Beach, Esq., M.P. 

Mr. Beach heartily approved of this proposal ; but 
as there was no particular reason for haste, and public 
affairs both at home and abroad were very unsettled, 
Sydney's plan was allowed to " nap a little." The 
autumn of 1797 glided rapidly away in the midst of 
preparations for the proposed journey, and in Decem- 
ber, Sydney was invited to Bo wood, to marry Bobus to 
Miss Vernon, half sister to his friend. Lord Henry 
Petty. Meanwhile Europe was full of wars and 
rumours of war, and the military genius of Napoleon 
was filling the earth with bloodshed and sorrow, and 
the minds of men with hatred and alarm. Germany 
was not exempt from the general disturbance, and the 
plans of master and pupil were in consequence thrown 
into confusion. Winter gave way to spring, but the 
stormy troubles of the times showed no sign of abate- 
ment, and at length driven through " stress of 
politics " from all thoughts of scholastic quiet in 
Saxony, they were compelled to second thoughts upon 
the matter, and eventually Mr. Beach determined that 
Michael and his tutor should relinquish all idea of the 
Continent, and go to Edinburgh instead. They ap- 
pear to have started for the north early in May, and 
to have proceeded very leisurely on their journey. 

Young Beach and his tutor visited Warwick and 
Birmingham, and were greatly interested with what 
they saw in both places. Sydney was " enchanted " 
with Matlock, but thought that the desolation of the 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 39 

country between Bakewell and Disley was " scan- 
dalous." Buxton filled him with supreme contempt, 
and the jolting of the coach over the roads in its 
neighbourhood led him to hesitate between suicide 
and sleep, but fortunately he " unconsciously adopted 
the latter." The activity and enterprise of Manches- 
ter and Liverpool were next duly noted, and then the 
travellers made their way by easy stages to the Lakes. 
Here they rambled from place to place, saw the usual 
sights, and duly climbed Skiddaw. The mountains 
around Windermere kindled their enthusiasm ; but 
for beauty, Sydney gave Derwentwater the palm, and 
for grandeur, Ulleswater. They were accompanied in 
their wanderings by a Grerman courier, named Mit- 
lioffer, who had been engaged in prospect of the ex- 
pedition to the Continent, and who was retained — in 
the capacity of valet and attendant, — when it was 
settled that Edinburgh, and not Weimar, should be 
their goal. They arrived in Edinburgh in the middle 
of June, 1798;^ Sydney had just completed his 
twenty- seventh year, and his pupil was eighteen, 
when the coach rolled into the picturesque city amid 
the dust of a midsummer evening. 

Sydney Smith could scarcely have set foot in the 
Northern Athens at a more auspicious hour. During 
the closing years of last century, and the opening 
ones of this, Edinburgh was full of keen and varied 
intellectual life, and at that period it was by no means 
difficult for a young man of ordinary ability and edu- 

^ Lady Holland mentions 1797 as the year; but all the dates 
given above, as well as others in the early chapters of this narra- 
tive, are taken from letters now in the possession of Sir Michael 
Hicts-Beach, which conclusively determine the point. 



40 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

cation, to establisli himself in the midst of its pleasant 
and brilliant society. Many of the inhabitants oi 
that " energetic and unfragrant city," as the elder of 
our two travellers was pleased to term it, were 
shrewd, hearty, and cultivated, and their hospitality, 
whilst neither lavish in itself nor pretentious in its 
forms, was of a nature which imparted not only a 
singular zest to social enjoyment, but made it an 
occasion of happy and unstudied mental stimulus. 
Through a variety of causes, the most prominent of 
which was the war with France, Edinburgh society 
from 1795 to 1815 was unusually distinguished and 
animated. Many cadets of noble English families, 
such as Lord Webb Seymour, Lord Henry Petty, 
Lord John Russell, and others, were drawn to its 
University, partly by the restrictive statutes of Oxford 
and Cambridge, but still more by the genius and 
learning of such eminent professors as Dugald 
Stewart and John Playfair. The city, moreover, was 
crowded with clever and ambitious young men, whose 
heads were much better stocked than their purses, 
and who were ready, with frank good will, to extend 
the right hand of fellowship, at a moment's notice, to 
any stranger whose qualifications for the common life 
were identical with their own. " They formed a 
band of friends all attached to each other, all full of 
hope, ambition, and gaiety, and all strengthened in 
their mutual connection by the politics of most of 
them separating the whole class from the ordinary 
society of the city. It was a most delightful brother- 
hood."* Even had it been otherwise, Sydney Smith's 

* " Memorials of his Time," by Heury Cockburn, p. 176. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 4l 

fresh and unforced linmour, kindly aspect, and at- 
tractive manners, would have won a welcome for him 
amongst much more stiff and dignified associates than 
those who now warmly hailed his accession to their 
ranks. 

Amongst the men of commanding influence who 
adorned the city at the period of his arrival, were 
Henry Erskine, Adam Ferguson, Dugald Stewart, and 
John Playfair. Scotland, moreover, was still mourn- 
ing the loss which philosophy and belles-lettres had 
sustained in the death of Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, 
David Hume, and Wilham Robertson ; whilst Robert 
Burns, one of the greatest and most gifted of her 
sons, had then just sunk into an untimely grave. 
Amongst the younger men who were struggling into 
fame, and with most of whom Sydney Smith soon 
became personally acquainted, were Jeffrey, Horner, 
Brougham, Murray, Walter Scott, and Thomas Camp- 
bell. 

The young tutor was keenly alive to the privi- 
leges of his new position, and eager to make the most 
of the golden opportunities which it afforded. In 
after-years he was accustomed to say that contact 
with such persons had been the " peculiar felicity of 
his early life," and that he regarded " the one earthly 
good worth struggling for to be the love and esteem 
of many great and good men." Social life in the 
Scottish capital eighty or a hundred years ago, was 
distinguished by a robust simplicity which contrasts 
favourably with some of the more prominent, but less 
pleasing characteristics of society both north and 
south to-day. People who were not blessed with 
mucli of this world's goods, were not ashamed silently 



42 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

to avow tlie fact by offering their assembled friends 
a frugal but substantial meal, and there was a 
hearty contempt for that mischievous and unhappy 
form of social deception known as living for appear- 
ances. 

Scottish life and character never had a keener critic 
than Sydney Smith, with the single exception of Dr. 
Johnson, three-fourths of whose supposed hatred of 
the Scotch (according to one of his admirers) was 
merely goodhumoured and witty banter, whilst the 
remaining fourth was honest prejudice. Sydney loved 
to catch at the ludicrous aspects of Scottish lite, and 
to reproduce them in his own extravagant but genial 
way ; but if he played with the odd foibles and quaint 
usages of the people around him, he was equally ready 
to acknowledge at something like their true value those 
high qualities of mind and heart, which have made 
the Scottish character respected and influential in every 
quarter of the globe. His witticisms at the expense of 
Scotland and the Scotch are almost as well known as 
those of his great predecessor in the art. He speaks 
of Scotland, on one occasion, as the •' knuckle-end of 
England,"^ and as if that was not sufficiently uncompli- 
mentary, adds in the same breath, and "garret of the 
earth." In his day the roads were so villainous, and 
the sanitary arrangements so barbarous, that he 
declared that to travel in Scotland was to mortify the 
body in order to gratify the mind. And as for the 
people themselves, even if it required a surgical opera- 
tion to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding,® 
still " no nation has so large a stock of benevolence of 

^ " Memoir of Sydney Smith," chap. ii. p. 18. 
« Ibid. p. 17. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



43 



heart," and tliey are so goodnatiired that " their 
temper stands anything but an attack on their 
cUmate." 

In July, 1798, a week or two after their arrival, 
Sydney Smith and his pupil took lodgings at 38, South 




38, South Hanover Stkeet, Edinburgh. 



Hanover Street, and during their first year in Edin- 
burgh that house was their home. The house stands 
on rising ground, and is the second buildmg on the 
west side on approaching from George Street. It is, 
as the accompanying illustration shows, a well-built 



44 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

city house, and the rooms on the first floor, which 
were those which Sydney Smith and his pupil 
occupied, are spacious and lofty, and command a 
distant view of the Forth. But thougli the house in 
South Hanover Street was pleasant and convenient, 
the landlady was tyrannical and exorbitant, and 
after their first term at Edinburgh, they deemed it 
best, on returning to the city, to go further even if they 
fared worse. They accordingly removed round the 
corner into Queen Street, and a curious and not very 
inviting-looking old house there, which still bears the 
number "19," became their temporary domicile. 
Here they seem to have been comfortable ; at any 
rate, we may conclude so, for there is no mention in 
any of the letters which they regularly despatched 
week by week to Williamstrip Park of any ground of 
complaint. From the windows of this house they 
had a glorious view over the meadows, of the Estuary 
of the Forth, and of the glittering sea beyond. 

Their last residence in Edinburgh and the home to' 
which Sydney Smith brought his young bride in the 
autumn of 1800, was a neat and attractive little 
house — not five minutes' walk from either of the 
others — 46, George Street; and that they were 
thoroughly comfortable and happy in it admits of no 
question. The letters which were written from that little 
" main door house" are full of sparkling enjoyment and 
fun, and evince that the young tutor, in spite of occa- 
sional apprehensions about the futui^e — was leading a 
busy, influential, and happy life. No. 46, George Street 
is still an attractive-looking house, and now, though 
hemmed in by warehouses and shops, it has not suffered 
through the commercial invasion of that once fashion- 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



45 



able thoroughfare, to the extent which some of its less 
favoured neighbours have done ; nor is the house as 
small as it at first sight appears, for both at the front 
and back there are several handsome rooms, and 
the drawing-room which looks in the direction of 




46, George Street, Edinburgh. 



Princes Street is both elegant and spacious. It is 
now the oflQce of the Educational Endowments 
Commission, and the apartment in which the youDg 
English bride first received her husband's friends, and 
where Jeffrey and Horner, Brougham and Brown, 



46 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

became his guests, is now used as the board-room of 
the Commission. 

Michael Beach, under the genial but firm control of 
his tutor, made satisfactory progress with his studies, 
and proved himself in other ways neither unmindful 
nor unworthy of the advantages which he enjoyed. 
The tutor as well as the pupil improved the time at 
his disposal by attending the lectures on Moral Philo- 
sophy of Dugald Stewart, and by studying the theory 
and practice of Medicine. Although Sydney Smith 
had come to Edinburgh in a scholastic capacity, his 
ability as a preacher soon became known, and was 
promptly called into requisition. The chief represen- 
tative of the Church of England in Edinburgh at that 
period was the Rev. Archibald Alison, LL.B., the 
author of the well-known Essays on Taste, and 
father of Sir Archibald Alison, the historian, and 
grandfather of the gallant soldier who now bears the 
same name and title. The Episcopalians worshipped 
in Charlotte Chapel, Rose Street — which runs parallel 
with Princes Street ; there Sydney Smith officiated 
from time to time as an occasional preacher ; and there 
the great hero of his Edinburgh days — Dugald Stewart 
— came to hear him preach. The Episcopalians of 
Edinburgh occupy to-day much more imposing build- 
ings than the chapel in Rose Street in which Archibald 
Alison and Sydney Smith preached, and now a Baptist 
congregation worship there. ^ The chapel has been 
re-pewed, and the old pulpit has been replaced by one 
more in accordance with the tastes of those who now 

' The Baptists of Edinburgh purchased Charlotte Chapel in 1818, 
and from that period to the pi'esent time they have continued to 
worship there. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 47 

hold possGEssion of the place. There is a schoolroom 
underneath the building, and there the old pulpit may 
still be seen, doing duty, doubtless, as the superin- 
tendent's desk. Charlotte Chapel has a very deep 
gallery, which runs along three sides of the building ; 
and an octagonal roof of curious design, with glass 
lantern in the centre, is probably the only character- 
istic of the interior which remains unchanored. 
Externally, however, Charlotte Chapel remains the 
same; it is a plain but substantial stone building of 
rather low elevation, and of no artistic merit. 

The following amusing note was despatched to Mr. 
Beach as soon as Michael and the writer were 
beginning to feel at home amid their new surround- 
ings : — 

[v.] 38, South Hanover Street, 

10th Sept., 1798. 

My dear Sir, — Michael is in very good health, 
with an improved complexion, living temperately, 
bathing constantly, taking regular exercise and 
regular study, and apparently cheerful and happy. I 
can say much the same of myself, with the exception 
of the second article — an improved complexion ; 
unpardonable nature has, I am afraid, doomed me to 
eternal copper, but even this I could forget if the 
people of Edinburgh would not gape at my sermons. 
In the middle of an exquisite address to Virtue, 
beginning, "0 Virtue!" I saw a rascal gaping as 
if his jaws were torn asunder. I have a great horror 
of suicide, and therefore I yet live. 

Yours, my dear sir, ever most truly, 

Sydney Smith. 



48 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



With Diigald Stewart and Lord Webb Seymour, lie 
was soon on terms of intimate friendship, and they 
quickly recognized his worth, and introduced him to 
the best society of the city. Dugald Stewart, a com- 
petent and fastidious judge of pulpit oratory, appre- 
ciated the new preacher in Charlotte Chapel much 
more highly than the unknown man who yawned so 




CHARLOTTE CHAPEL, EOSE STREET, EDINBURGH. 



conspicuously when Sydney was apostrophizing virtue. 
" Those original and unexpected ideas," declared the 
Professor, as he left the chapel after hearing him 
preach, " gave me a thrilling sensation of sublimity 
never before awakened by any other oratory." ^ An 
interesting memorial of the Sundays spent in Edin- 
burgh by Sydney Smith exists in a little volume — 

* " Memoirs of Sydney Smitli," chap. iv. p. 69. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 49 

which lias now become exceedingly scarce — entitled 
" Six Sermons preached in Charlotte Chapel, EcUn- 
hurgh, by tlie Rev. Sydney Smith, A.M., and Fellow 
of New College, Oxford."' Edinburgh, 1800." The 
book is dedicated to Lord Webb Seymour in the fol- 
lowing terms : — 

My Lobd, — I dedicate these few sermons to you, 
as a slight token of my great regard and respect, 
because I know no man who, in spite of the disadvan- 
tages of high birth, lives to mbre honourable and 
commendable purposes than yourself. 

I am, my Lord, your most sincere well-wisher, 

Sydney Smith. 

This was the first appearance of the name of Sydney 
Smith in print, and the brief but vigorous preface to 
the book opens with the following significant and 
characteristic account of its origin : — " I wrote these 
sermons in the exercise of my profession — to do good, 
and for the same reason I make them public. That 
they cannot do much I am well aware, because they 
are hasty and imperfect specimens of an unpopular 
species of composition. Some little good they may 
do, and why should I give way to an immoral vanity, 
and do nothing in my vocation, because I cannot do 
much ? The sum of public opinion is made up of the 
sentiments, as the sum of public revenue is from the 
contributions, of individuals ; and we become a rich or 
a prudent nation, by adding together many trifling 
quotas of wisdom and of gold." 

The mere titles which follow evince the practical 
character and comprehensive spirit of his ministry, 
even at this early stage ; whilst the sermons themselves 

E 



50 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

display the moral courage as well as the intellectual 
ability of the ex-curate of Nether Avon. It was, indeed, 
no easy task for any man to treat in the pulpit such 
subjects as the " Love of our Country," " Scepticism," 
the " Poor Magdalene," the " Best Mode of Charity," 
and " Predisposing Causes to the Reception of Repub- 
lican Opinions," in a city like the Edinburgh of the 
end of last century, but Sydney Smith's success was 
immediate and unmistakable. One extract from a 
volume so little known, can here be scarcely out of 
place, especially as the subject is the " Love of our 
Country :" — " Christianity guides us to another world, 
by showing us how to act in this ; in precepts more or 
less general, it enacts and limits every human duty. 
The world is the theatre where we are to show whether 
we are Christians in profession or in deed ; and there 
is no action of our lives, which concerns the interests 
of others, in which we do not either violate or obey a 
Christian law. I cannot therefore illustrate a moral 
duty, without, at the same time, enforcing a precept of 
our religion. The love of our country has, in the late 
scenes which have been acted in the world, been so 
often made a pretext for bad ambition, and so often 
given birth to crude and ignorant violence, that many 
good men entertain no very great relish for the virtue, 
and some are, in truth, tired and disgusted with the 
very name of it ; but this mode of thinking, though very 
natural, and very common, is, above all others, that 
which goes to perpetuate error in the world. If good 
men are to cherish in secret the ideas, that any theory 
of duties we owe to our country is romantic and absurd, 
because bad and foolish men have made it an engine of 
crime, or found it a source of error ; if there is to be 



OF THE PiEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 51 

tills constant action and reaction between extreme 
opinions ; why, then the sentiments of mankind must 
be In eternal vibration between one error and another, 
and can never rest upon the middle point of truth. 
Let it be our pride to derive our principles, not from 
times and circumstances, but from reason and religion, 
and to struggle against that mixture of indolence and 
virtue which condemns the use, because it will not dis- 
criminate the abuse, which it abhors. In spite of the 
prostitution of this venerable name, there is, and there 
ever will be, a Christian patriotism, a great system of 
duties which man owes to the sum of human beings 
with whom he lives ; to deny it is folly ; to neglect it 
is crime." ^ 

During his residence in Edinburgh, two important 
events took place in the life of Sydney Smith, the first 
of which was productive of personal happiness, and the 
second of public honour. The first of these events 
was his marriage; the second was the commencement 
of the Edinburgh Review. 

In reference to the former, there is in truth but little 
to tell, little at least which concerns the world at large. 
It was in June 1800, and therefore after he had been 
in Scotland for two years, that Sydney Smith — then in 
his thirtieth year — paid a visit to England in order to 
be married. The lady — to whom he had been for some 
time betrothed — was Miss Catherine Amelia Pybus, of 
Cheam House, Cheam, Surrey, and she had been the 
friend from early girlhood of his sister, Maria. Miss 
Pybus was the daughter of the late John Pybus, Esq., 
of Cheam, and formerly of Greenhill Grove, in Herts. 

^ " Six Sermons preached in Charlotte Chapel, Edinburgh, by 
the Eev. Sydney Smith," pp. 9, 10. 



52 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Born in 1727, Mr. Pybus went to India, where lie be- 
came a member of the Council of Madras. He was 
appointed ambassador to the King of Ceylon in 1762, 
and was the first Englishman received in a public capa- 
city at that prince's court. Returning to England, after 
an honourable career in the East, he retired to Cheam, 
where he died in 1789. The monuments of the Pybus 
family may still be seen in the chancel of the parish 
church. No traditions of Sydney Smith, although he 
was a frequent visitor, linger arouud Cheam, and pro- 
bably the only memorial of his presence there, beyond 
the entry of his marriage in the parish register, con- 
sists in the following epitaph, which he wrote on the 
occasion of one of his visits concerning Mrs. Pybus's 
favourite dog " Nick," which still may be read in the 
garden of Cheam House : — 

POOE NICK. 

Here lies pooi' Nick, an honest creature, 
Of faithful, gentle, courteous nature ; 
A pai'lour pet unspoiPd by favour, 
A pattern of good dog behaviour. 
Without a wish, without a dream 
Beyond his home and friends at Cheam, 
Contentedly through life he trotted 
Along the path that fate allotted ; 
Till time, his aged body wearing. 
Bereaved him of his sight and heai'ing, 
Then laid him down without a pain, 
To sleep, and never wake again. 

"Sydney Smith, Clerk, A.M. of New College, 
Oxford, and Catherine Amelia Pybus of this parish " — 
so runs the official record — " were married by licence 
on July 2nd, 1800, in the parish church of Cheam, by 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 53 

Henry Peach, Rector." Mrs. Pybus had all along 
entertained the highest regard for her future son-in- 
law, and the union took place in her presence, and met 
with her hearty approval. The brother of the young 
lady, however, was not by any means so complaisant, 
and appears to have imagined that his sister was 
making an egregious blunder in consenting thus to 
link her fortunes to those of a penniless and unknown 
man. Mr. Charles S. Pybus (who was a Lord of the 
Admiralty in the Pitt Administration, and at one time 
member for Dover), behaved towards his sister in a 
very ungracious way, and with something of the lofty 
severity of an indignant parent. Fortunately, the 
young lady had too much spirit and good sense to 
sacrifice her own and her lover's happiness to her 
dignified brother's opinions. " I was twenty-two," 
relates the bride-elect in a hitherto unpublished frag- 
ment, " and my mother said if I chose to forego the 
comforts and luxuries to which I had been born, I 
alone was to be the sufferer ; and that of my ability to 
decide upon that which would best constitute my 
happiness there could be no more doubt than of my 
right. She had but one wish — that I should be happy. 
She had long known and loved Sydney, and if to 
marry him was my resolve, she would not oppose it." 
Sydney's bride brought him a modest dowry, and he 
in turn flung into her lap his entire fortune, which 
Lady Holland states consisted of " six small silver tea- 
spoons, which from much wear had become the ghosts 
of their former selves." 

The prospects of the Edinburgh tutor and his young 
bride were certainly the reverse of briUiant, and it 
must be admitted that on strictly prudential and 



54 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



worldly grounds, the friends of the lady concerned 
were not far from the truth when they roundly as- 
serted that she had not married to advantage. She, 
however, was supremely happy in her new life, difficult 
though at times it was, and gradually other people 
srrew more or less reconciled. It was a union which 
brought with it peace and gladness, and the glimpses 
we shall hereafter get of the cheerful and well-ordered 
home of Sydney Smith, are enough to convince all but 
the most hopelessly cynical that there are greater risks 
in life than those which young people run when they 
are rash enough to marry for love. One pleasing in- 
cident in reference to this important stage in his 
career deserves honourable mention. Mr, Hicks-Beach, 
duly grateful for his influence over Michael, came 
gallantly to the help of the youug couple, and made 
two brave lovers profoundly grateful by the opportune 
gift of a cheque for 7601. Thus, in spite of Mr. Charles 
Pybus and his dismal prophecies, the course of true 
love ran almost as smoothly as even Sydney himself 
could have wished. 




NETHER AVON CHURCH. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 65 



CHAPTER III. 

1802. 

Projection of the Edinburgh Eevieio—JeErej, Horner, and 
Brougham. 

" I HAVE a passionate love for common justice and for 
common sense," exclaimed Sydney Smith on one 
occasion, and he was now to prove before all the 
world the truth of that declaration. The Edinburgh 
RevieiLi was projected in the spring of 1802, and the 
first number appeared in the following October. In 
his own off-hand and easy fashion, he has described 
the origin of that memorable enterprise in words which 
have become historic : — " Towards the close of my 
residence in Edinburgh, Brougham, Jeffrey, and myself 
happened to meet in the eighth or ninth story or flat 
in Buccleuch Place, the then elevated residence of 
Mr. Jeffrey. I proposed that we should set up a 
Review. This was acceded to with acclamation. I 
was appointed editor, and remained long enough in 
Edinburgh to edit the first number of the Review. 
The motto I proposed for the Review was Tenui 
musam meditamur avend — ' We cultivate literature on 
a little oatmeal.' But this was too near the truth to 
be admitted ; so we took our present grave motto from 
Publius Syrus, of whom none of us had, I am sure, 



56 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

read a single line ; and so began what has since turned 
out a very important and able journal. When I left 
Edinburgh it fell into the stronger hands of Lords 
Jeffrey and Brougham, and reached the highest point 
of popularity and success." ^ Even at the risk of being 
charged with repeating a twice-told tale, it may not 
be out of place to supplement Sydney Smith's account 
of the commencement of the Review with the state- 
ments of the other two men chiefly concerned, Lord 
Jeffrey and Lord Brougham. 

Lord Jeffrey gave Dr. Robert Chambers in 1846 the 
followinof account of his recollections of what took 
place : — " I cannot say exactly where the project of 
the Edinburgh Review was first talked of among the 
projectors. But the first serious consultations about it 
— and which led to our application to a publisher — were 
held in a small house where I then lived in Buccleuch 
Place. They were attended by S. Smith, F. Horner, 
Dr. Thomas Brown, Lord Murray, and some of them 
also by Lord Webb Seymour, Dr. John Thomson, and 
Thomas Thomson. The first three numbers were 
given to the pubUsher — he taking the risk and defray- 
ing the charges. There w^as then no individual editor, 
but as many of us as could be got to attend used to 
meet in a dingy room of Willison's printing-office, in 
Craig's Close, when the proofs of our own articles 
were read over and remarked upon, and attempts made 
also to sit in judgment on the few manuscripts which 
were then offered by strangers. But we had seldom 
patience to go through with this; and it was soon 

^ "Memoirs of the Eev. Sydney Smith," by Lady Holland, 
chap. ii. p. 33. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 57 

found necessary to have a responsible editor, and the 
office was pressed upon me." ^ 

Lord Brougham has also placed on record his im- 
pressions of what occurred : — " I can never forget 
Buccleuch Place, for it was there one stormy night in 
March 1802, that Sydney Smith first announced to me 
his idea of establishing a critical periodical, or review 
of wo^^ks of literature and science. I believe he had 
already mentioned this to Jeffrey and Horner ; but, on 
that night the project was for the first time seriously 
discussed by Smith, Jeffrey, and me. I at first entered 
warmly into Smith's scheme. Jeffrey — by nature always 
rather timid — was full of doubts and fears. It required 
all Smith's overpowering vivacity to argue and laugh 
Jeffrey out of his difficulties. There would, he said,, 
be no lack of contributors. There was himself, ready 
to write any number of articles, and to edit the whole ; 
there was Jeffrey, facile princeps in all kinds of litera- 
ture ; there was myself, full of mathematics, and 
everything relating to the colonies ; there was Horner 
for political economy, and Murray for general subjects. 
Besides, might we not, from our great and never-to-be- 
doubted success, fairly hope to receive help from such 
leviathans as Playfair, Dugald Stewart, Thos. Brown, 
Thomson, and others ? All this was irresistible, and 
Jeffrey could not deny that he had already been the 
author of many important papers in existing perio- 
dicals." ^ 

These three statements, though they differ slightly 

"Chambers' Cjclopasdia of English Literature,'' vol. ii. pp. 
544, 545. 

■* " Memoirs of the Life and Times of Lord Brougham," vol. i. 
chap. iv. pp. 251, 252. 



58 THE LIFE AIsD TIMES 

in detail, are not difficult to reconcile in more essen- 
tial points. Lord Jeffrey always acknowledged that 
Sydney Smith was the first to suggest the idea of 
the Edlnhiirgh Beview, and Lord Brougham, in the 
passage just quoted, not only asserts that such was 
the case, but also mentions the precise occasion when 
the ex-curate of Nether Avon first made the proposal. 
Writing to Robert Chambers after the lapse of 
more than forty years, Jeffrey states distinctly that 
he was unable to recall the exact time when the idea 
was first mooted, though he had a vivid remembrance 
of the first " serious consultations " which were held 
to discuss Sydney Smith's proposal. Sydney Smith 
declared that he first made the suggestion that Jeffrey, 
Brougham, and himself should set up a review, at the 
house of the former in Buccleuch Place, at a chance 
meeting with his two friends there, towards the close 
of his stay in Edinburgh. Lord Brougham not only 
confirms this statement, but also mentions that it was 
on a " stormy night in March 1802," that Smith 
startled Jeffrey and himself with his bold suggestion. 
Lord Jeffrey, Lord Brougham, and Sydney Smith 
were, of course, the only three men who could speak 
with certainty on such a subject ; and as Lord Jeffrey 
did not throw the shghtest doubt on Sydney Smith's 
statement, but simply confessed his own inability 
■ — after nearly half a century had elapsed — to recall 
the precise occasion upon which the subject was 
first discussed, that statement, confirmed as it after- 
wards was in so circumstantial a manner by Lord 
Brougham, may be accepted as conclusive, so far at 
least as the actual projector of the Review is concerned, 
and the occasion and place where the idea was first con- 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



59 



ceived. Jeffrey's dedication of his selected essays to 
Sydney Smitli, as the " projector " of the Edinburgh 
Revieio, is also worthy of passing notice in this con- 
nection. 

There are two points, however, in which Sydney 




18, BuccLEUCH Place, Edinburgh. 

Smith's statement requires modification . The "eighth 
or ninth " story of Jeffrey's house in Buccleucli Place 
existed only in his lively imagination, as all who are 
acquainted with Edinburgh are perfectly aware ; and 
the expression, " I was appointed editor," is also 



60 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

slightly misleading. The house which Jeffrey occupied 
was No. 18, Biiccleuch Place, and his rooms — a hand- 
some suite — were situated on the third floor, and there 
seems reason to believe that in the dinins^-room to the 
front, Sydney Smith first broached his scheme. Both 
Jeffrey and Brougham have expressly stated that at 
the outset there was no recognized editor ; the whole 
thing was only an experiment, and no such appoint- 
ment was made until public approval had stamped 
the enterprise with success. When the proposal, 
however, first took shape, Sydney Smith, as the 
originator of the scheme, was naturally appealed to 
by his colleagues to read over the articles submitted, 
and to see the introductory numbers safely through 
the press. He accordingly revised in this informal 
way the first articles, and then, on his removal to 
London, Jeffrey was duly appointed, though not without 
strong misgivings on his own part, to the post of 
editor. 

The first number of the Edinburgh Eeuieiv, or Critical 
Journal, appeared in October 1802, and Archibald 
Constable and Co. were the publishers of it. The 
contributors were accustomed to meet at Willison's 
printing-office in Craig's Close, in the Canongate, 
and the narrow, winding passage through which these 
literary conspirators used one by one to disappear 
remains unaltered. Archibald Constable married Miss 
Mary Willison. " One of the trusty workmen of 
the printing-office being sent with a sealed packet 
of proof to a small lodging-house in the New Town, 
was asked by the landlady if he could tell her any- 
thing about the lodgers she had got, for, said she, 
they were all decent, well-behaved, sober men, but, 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 61 

altliough tliey didn't sleep there, they 'keepit awfu' 
unseasonable hours ! ' " ■* The group of friends entered 
into an agreement, according to Lord Brougham, to 
guarantee Constable four numbers " as an experiment." 
The success, however, was immediate, and transcended 
the wildest expectations of the most sanguine of the 
contributors, and at one bound the experimental stage 
of the enterprise was triumphantly passed. Three 
editions were called for' in rapid succession, and before 
the fourth number was published a wide and reliable 
demand was created. Whilst Sydney Smith, Francis 
Horner, Henry Brougham, and Thomas Brown were 
surprised and elated by the reception thus given to their 
venture, Jeffrey, relates one of the group, was " utterly 
dumbfounded, for he had predicted for our journal the 
fate of the original EcUnbiirgh Review, which, born in 
1755, died in 1756, having produced only two num- 
bers." ^ It is interesting to learn, on the authority of 
Lord Brougham, that Sydney Smith contributed 
eighteen articles to the first four numbers, whilst 
Jeffrey was represented by sixteen, Horner by seven, 
and Brougham himself by twenty-one. When their 
venture appeared Francis Horner was preparing to 
exchangee Edinburo^h for London, and the Scottish for 
the English Bar, and in April 1803 — just after the 
third number was published — he carried this resolution 
into effect. Sydney Smith followed Horner to the 
south three months later, and thus, in nine months, 
two of the four principal contributors had quitted 



* " Old Edinburgh." By James Drummond, Esq., R.S.A. 

* " Memoirs of the Life and Times of Lord Bi-ougham," vol. i. 
chap. iv. p. 253. 



62 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Edinburgli, and the burden of undivided responsibility 
fell upon Francis Jeffrey. 

Soon after Horner left Bdinburgli, Jeffrey wrote, 
and informed Mm that Sydney Smith had persuaded 
Constable and Longman to give 50^. a number to the 
editor, and to pay 10/. a sheet for all the contributions 
which the said editor thought worth the money, and 
added that he felt inclined to accept the responsibility 
of the post : — " There are pros and cons in the case, 
no doubt. What the pros are I need not tell you. 
300/. a year is a monstrous bribe to a man in my 
situation. The cons are vexation and trouble, inter- 
ference with professional employment and character, 
and risk of general degradation. The first I have had 
some little experience of, and am not afraid for. The^ 
second, upon a fair consideration, I am persuaded I 
ought to risk." ^ The Edinburgh Review, Jeffrey de- 
clared, stood on two legs, one of which was the 
criticism of contemporary literature, and the other 
Whig politics. 

It is easy enough to understand what Jeffrey means 
when he speaks in this connection of the probability of 
vexation and trouble, and " interference with profes- 
sional employment;" but we need to remember the 
despised position of journalism at the beginning of the 
century before we can at all understand the dreaded 
opprobrium to which he alludes in the words, the "risk 
of general degradation ;" to write for the press — at least 
when payment was expected — was regarded ninety or 
a hundred years ago as derogatory to a gentleman. 
Men of genius, such as Coleridge, Lamb, and Mackin- 

5 " Life of Lord Jeffiej," vol. ii. p. 71. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 63 

tosh, all of whom were on the staff of a single news- 
paper, the Morning Post, were thus employed, but they 
recognized the influence of journalism, and bent their 
energies to its service, in defiance of the public opinion 
of their times. Writers in the press were regarded half 
with fear, and half with disdain ; they had no acknow- 
ledged position in society, and their social claims were 
usually met with a contemptuous rejection. Even so late 
as 1808 the " Benchers of Lincoln's Inn made a bye-law 
excluding all persons who had written for the daily 
papers from being called to the Bar. More than twenty 
years afterwards a Lord Chancellor offended the pro- 
priety of his supporters, and excited their animadver- 
sions, by asking the editor of the Times to dinner. The 
press was regarded as a pestilent nuisance, which it 
was essential to destroy." ^ It is needless to say that 
a complete change has passed over public opinion since 
the time when Jeffrey felt that a " risk of degradation" 
was involved in the acceptance of an editor's position, 
and the highest personage in the realm might offer 
hospitality to a journalist to-day without any fear of 
hostile criticism. Some credit is due for this altered 
condition of things to Jeffrey himself, and the state- 
ment that he " invented the trade of editorship — before 
Jeffrey an editor was a bookseller's drudge; he is now 
a distinguished functionary"' — expresses the simple 
truth, and does no more than justice to the famous 
reviewer. 

It was a fortunate circumstance, alike to Jeffrey and 
the Edinhurgh Bevieiv, that their mutual friends were 

" Walpole's "History of England from the Conclusion of the 
Great War in 1815," chap. iv. p. 383. 

^ Bagehot's " Literary Studies," vol. i. p. 30. 



64 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

shrewd enough to pUice that bright, energetic, decisive 
httle man in the editor's chair. He was exactly the 
man for the place ; and so well did he acquit himself 
in it that for years it was next to impossible to imagine 
that Jeffrey had existed before the Edinburgh Revieiv, 
or that the Edinburgh Review could exist after Jeffrey. 

It cannot, however, with truth be said that the lines 
had fallen to him in pleasant places when the bold pro- 
ject of Sydney Smith suddenly revealed a wide and 
influential sphere for the exercise of his powers. 

Born in Edinburgh in 1773, and therefore the junior 
by a couple of years of his clerical colleague, Francis 
Jeffrey had obtained his early education at the High 
School of his native city. From Edinburgh High 
School he had passed as a lad of fifteen, to Glasgow 
University, where he remained for two sessions, and 
then returned to Edinburgh, to attend the law classes 
of the University. In 1791 he proceeded to Queen's 
College, Oxford, where he never really settled, and 
only stayed nine months — a period long enough, how- 
ever, according to Lord Holland, for the Edinburgh 
callant to exchange " broad Scotch for narrow 
English." In the summer of 1792, chagrined with his 
Oxford experiences, he was again in Edinburgh, and 
at the unusually early age of one-and-twenty he was 
called to the Scotch Bar. His success as an advocate 
during the next ten years of his life, was extremely 
limited, and it was with difficulty that he was able to 
keep poverty at arm's length. Happily, a resolute 
young Scotchman of ordinary vigour can cultivate 
law as well as literature on a little oatmeal, and 
Jeffrey accordingly regarded his straitened circum- 
stances as only a passing phase of existence, and one 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 05 

from which by manly exertion he was bound, as soon 
as might be, to set himself free. In order to hasten 
the process he married, in 1801, his second cousin, 
Catherine, daughter of Dr. Wilson, Professor of 
Ecclesiastical History at St. Andrew's. " I am sensible 
we shall be very poor," he writes in August of 
the same year to his brother John, in America, " for 
I do not make 100/. a year by my profession. You 
would not marry in this situation ? Neither would I, 
if I saw any likelihood of its growing better before I 
was too old to marry at all. * * * Besides, we trust in 
Providence, and have hopes of dying before we get to 
prison." ^ Mrs. Jeffrey died in 1805, just as her 
husband's fame was becoming established, and bis 
fight with fortune beginning to tell. After the lapse 
of eight years he married again, and his second wife, 
Miss Charlotte Wilkes, was an American lady, and the 
grandniece of the celebrated agitator, John Wilkes. 

Sydney Smith was thirty-one ; Jeffrey, twenty-nine, 
Brougham, twenty-four, and Horner the same age, 
when the Edinhargli imder their united inspiration 
launched out into the deep, and began its long struggle 
with political and social injustice. We who breathe 
the free political atmosphere of to-day, and move in the 
midst of its generous social life, are more indebted to 
that little group of workers for the cleansed and quick- 
ened condition of the once turbid and sluggish current 
of national thought, than perhaps we are usually in- 
clined to admit. During the first twenty years of its 
existence — no brief term in the career of magazine or 
mortal — the Edinburgh Review owed its ever-widening 

^ " Life of Lord Jeffrey," by Henry, Lord Cockburn, vol. ii. p. 57. 



66 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

influence cliiefly to the patient ability and skilful 
management of Francis Jeffrey, and the brilliant wit 
and bold freedom of speech of Sydney Smith. 

There can be no question that Jeffrey worked in 
season and out for the Review, and did more than any 
other man to bring and keep it to the front of the best 
thouo-ht of the day. He possessed a calm confidence 
in himself and in the infallibility of his own literary and 
social judgments which sufficed to shield him from 
many an anxious hour. Like Lord John Russell, there 
was literally " nothing that he would not undertake,'* 
and linked to this miraculous power to write at demand 
with an appearance of profundity on all things under 
the sun, there was also a wonderful degree of tact, 
and an instinctive perception of character about the 
" arch-critic " which enabled him to handle with ease 
all sorts of men, from the irascible and erratic Harry 
Brougham to the austere and unco mpromising Thomas 
Carlyle. One of the most striking pen-and-ink sketches 
of Lord Jeffrey which has been given to the present 
generation is that which Carlyle has bequeathed to 
the world in the pages of his " Reminiscences ;" 
it would have been equally interesting had Jeffrey 
left as minute a description of his first impressions 
of the stalwart if sombre young man who strode 
into his office armed with Procter's introduction. 
During the first seven years of his connection with 
the Revieiv, Jeffrey contributed on an average no less 
than three or four articles to each number ; and 
during the entire seven-and-twenty years to which 
his editorship extended he may be said to have 
written an article for it once in every five weeks. 
His mode of dealing with the thousand-and-one 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 6'7 

topics wliicli in turn engaged liis nimble pen was 
frequently brilliant, and usually adroit and skilful. 
He possessed the liappy art of being brief without 
being obscure, and few men knew better how to 
present the pith of even a bulky or elaborate book, 
well within the narrow limits prescribed by the 
patience of an indolent reader. Sensible, shrewd, 
matter-of-fact, Jeffrey admired precision of thought 
and clearness of statement, and grew restless and 
uneasy whenever such qualities were denied him. He 
liked explicit statements, and felt almost aggrieved 
when called to deal with vague aspirations. The 
mystical and symbolical aspects of existence lay in a 
cloud-capped region of thought to which his spirit 
was not sufl&ciently adventurous to climb. 

It need not therefore excite surprise that Jeffrey — 
who though a genial man was often a savage critic — 
should have written with open scorn the memorable 
words, " This won't do," when William Wordsworth 
brought the " harvest of a quiet eye," and the rich 
treasures of a deeply spiritual and imaginative nature, 
and sought the verdict of the great reviewer on his 
work. Wordsworth had long noticed and deplored 
the lack of sympath}" displayed in popular literature 
with the ordinary events of life and the common 
tasks of men, as well as the wide-spread neglect 
of the familiar beauties of the external universe. 
Wisely reluctant himself to tread any longer in the 
" quiet footsteps of custom," the poet struck out 
a path of his own, and was Quixotic enough to run 
full tilt against popular taste and the recognized 
way of looking at things. But as few men, ac- 
cording to Sydney Smith, possess original eyes and 



68 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ears, the majority are apt to resent any rash or violent 
departure from accepted canons of taste or ancient 
landmarks of opinion. The " Lyrical Ballads " ac- 
cordingly, notwithstanding the genius of Wordsworth 
and Coleridge, made little impression on the public 
mind, and were regarded indeed in many quarters 
with a feeling difficult to distinguish from disdain. 
Wordsworth's fidelity to Nature otfended a generation 
of readers who had been trained in an entirely different 
school, and the Edinhurgh Review gave an exaggerated 
utterance to the prevailing dissatisfaction. 

Jeffrey could not appreciate the mystic element which 
pervaded the thought of the Lake School ; he knew 
nothinsf about the oversoiil with which Wordsworth 
held rapt communion as he wandered along the glit- 
terina-, fern-frino;ed shore, or roamed throuofh the 
leafy woods, or climbed the mountain's purple brow. 
The poet dwelt apart with Nature, and she allured 
him and spoke to him comfortable words, and told 
him those secrets which she entrusts to her lovers 
alone; and thus there was nothing from the daisy's 
" star-shaped shadow on the naked stone " to the 
"' light of setting suns " in all her glorious teaching 
which missed the way to that reverent and receptive 
heart. Jeffrey, however, failed to see, as he sat in his 
Edinburgh office, the use of all this fuss and rap- 
ture over field-flowers and vernal woods, and rustic 
children. And so exclaiming, " This won't do ! " he 
kicked, as he supposed, the new poet back into 
oblivion ; and the public, who understood Jeffrey's 
philippic much better than Wordsworth's poetry, 
overjoyed at the vigorous skill with which the exploit 
was accomplished, clapped its foolish hands in merry 
approbation. But if Jeffrey was put out, Wordsworth 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 69 

was not, and, strong in the consciousness of his high 
vocation and his own power to fill it, he went back 
silently to seclusion, and patiently pursued his mission, 
sustained by prophetic visions of a triumph he felt 
sure would ultimately come. When the " Excursion " 
was published in 1814, Jeffrey returned with charac- 
teristic energy to his old task, and presently began to 
boast with short-sighted complacency that his stric- 
tures in the Edinhnrgh had " crushed " the new poem. 
But there were wiser men in the United Kino^dom, 
in such matters at least, than even this miraculous 
editor; and one of them, Robert Southey by name, 
exclaimed with generous warmth and scorn, " Jeffrey 
crush the ' Excursion ' ! Tell him he miofht as well 
hope to crush Skiddaw ! " 

Jeffrey, however, could mete out praise as well as 
censure ; and, whatever his opinions were, the honesty 
with which he held them was as little open to question 
as the courage with which he avowed them. Not a 
few of his ex cathedra judgments have been reversed 
by the wider light and more exact knowledge of a 
subsequent period ; but he still stands at the head 
of his order as a representative man, and is justly 
regarded as one of the most able, independent, and 
fearless of critics which English literature has seen. 

Francis Horner, the son of an Edinburgh mer- 
chant, was born in that city in 1778. Like most 
lads of the same rank, he was sent to the High 
School, and proceeded as a mere boy to the University, 
where he remained nntil he was seventeen. As he 
was ambitious to follow the law, and displayed suf- 
ficient aptitude to encourage the hope that he might 
devote himself to it with at least average success, his 
father placed him under the care of a private tutor at 



70 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Shacklewell, in Middlesex ; and after a residence of 
two years in England, lie returned to Edinburgh in 
the autumn of 1797, and began to study equity 
with Henry Brougham, and metaphysics and political 
economy with Lord Webb Seymour. Two years laterj 
when Sydney Smith arrived in Edinburgh as tutor to 
young Beach, Horner was already regarded as a man 
of singular promise, but his professional advancement 
was blocked by the ascendency of the Dundas party, 
which looked with jealous and unfriendly eyes on all 
men who dared to speak their mind freely in bold and 
independent tones, on the grave political questions of 
the hour. 

The chief facts in Francis Horner's brief but bril- 
liant life are soon told. Driven in disgust from the 
Scottish Courts by the rampant Toryism which pre- 
vailed and the sycophancy it induced, Horner trans- 
ferred his abilities to London in the spring of 1803, 
and was cordially welcomed by many members of 
the English Bar. Sir James Mackintosh, Sir Samuel 
Romilly, and Mr. Ward, were among the first to ex- 
tend the right hand of fellowship to the reserved 
but able young Scotchman who now appeared in 
their midst. Horner quickly established himself in 
his profession, and justified the generous reception he 
had received. His mastery of financial questions was 
so conspicuous, that he was selected as a member of 
the Board of Commissioners appointed by the East 
India Company for the settlement of the Nabob of 
Arcot's debts. In 1806, through the instrumentality 
of Lord Henry Petty, he entered the House of Com- 
mons as member for St. Ives, and made steady and 
swift progress towards distinction in his new career. 
Four years after he entered Parliament, he moved for 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 71 

an ioquiry into an alleged depreciation of the currency, 
and in 1811 he was elected a member of the Bullion 
Committee, and by his remarkable speeches in the 
House during the debates which followed, he stepped 
at once into the rank of an authority on that and 
kindred subjects ; and, according to Lord Campbell, 
he was the first man in England to make the doctrines 
of political economy intelligible to the House of Com- 
mons.^ Year by year his influence with the aristocratic 
Whig party rapidly increased, and upon the news of 
his untimely death in 1817, Parliament suspended its 
sittings, and voted to his memory a monument in 
Westminster Abbey. Horner was only thirty-eight at 
the time of his death, and he rose from obscurity to a 
position of national importance and honour by the 
force of his intrinsic merits alone. His premature 
death was universally deplored, and was looked upon 
as a public calamity, and probably no young statesman 
of the Nineteenth century disappeared from the scene 
of his triumphs, amid more general expressions of 
deep feeling, until, a generation later, England was 
called to mourn once more the bright hopes which 
were extinguished in the early grave of Charles 
Buller. 

The friendship which sprang up between Francis 
Horner and Sydney Smith at the period of their 
early struggles was one which grew more intimate 
and tender with the lapse of each succeeding year. 
The two men met for the last time in the autumn 
of 1816, immediately after Horner — far in advance 
of public opinion — had made his final great speech 
in Parliament in favour of the recognition of the 

' " Lives of the Chancellors," vol. viii. Lord Brougham, chap. ii. 
p. 263. 



72 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Catholic claims. With the hand of death upon him, 
he had gone down to Foston to pay a farewell visit to 
his old comrade in arms before setting out on that 
melancholy journey to Pisa, from which he was des- 
tined never to return. Sydney Smith was deeply 
touched with the care-worn and wasted aspect of his 
friend; but states that even then "there was in his 
look a calm, settled love of all that was honourable 
and good — an air of wisdom and sweetness." A few 
months later, when the blow fell, he told Mr. Leonard 
Horner, that he did not remember any misfortune of 
his life which he had felt so keenly as the death of his 
brother, and added, " I never saw any man who com- 
bined together so much talent, worth, and warmth of 
heart." ^ 

As a contributor to the Review, Horner never 
could dash off an article with the bold vigour of 
Jeffrey or the brilliant ease of Sydney Smith. He 
worked with great deliberation; he bent over his 
sentences with patient care ; he selected his words 
with painstaking and often fastidious nicety ; his dis- 
quisitions smell of the lamp, and suggest the effort 
they are known to have cost. Horner's knowledge, 
whilst not in any department profound, was at the 
same time extensive and exact, and his judgment was 
remarkably sound. His contributions added a great 
deal of sober, intellectual strength to the opening 
numbers of the Edinburgh B.evieiv, and there was a 
comprehensive and statesman-like grasp of principles 
in the views he enunciated on all questions of national 
policj^ which seldom failed to arrest marked public 
attention. 

Henry Brougham, on the other hand, the last in- the 

^ " Memoir of the Eev. Sydney Smith," chap. vii. p. 120. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 73 

foremost group of Edinburgh reviewers, wrote with 
extreme rapidity. His quickness was proverbial, and 
he was able to concentrate the whole force of his intel- 
lect into the task of the passing hour, and to banish 
from his mind with enviable facility ail that stood 
between him and the conclusion of his work. But if 
he was swift, he was the reverse of sure, and was pre- 
cisely the kind of contributor, provokingly clever and 
provokingiy fickle — " ill to hae, but waur to want " — 
to throw an overwrought editor into despair. Born 
in Edinburgh, in the same year as Horner, Brougham's 
career extended to more than half a century beyond 
the date of his colleaofue's death. He left the Hig^h 
School dubbed " prodigy " — a dangerous compliment 
in itself, and one which has often retarded less capable 
men in their after- endeavours to achieve success. The 
reputation of a prodigy remained with Lord Brougham 
through life, and in his case its constant application 
was justified by the almost unlimited range of his 
accomplishments. The work which he mastered when 
in the fulness of his fame and strength dazzled his 
contemporaries, and seemed to justify the bold paradox 
that the more busy a man is, the more leisure he 
possesses. "Take it to that fellow Brougham; he 
has time for everything ! " exclaimed Sir Samuel 
Romilly, when requested on one occasion to edit a 
forthcoming book. 

There seemed, indeed, no bounds to his energy, and 
scarcely any to the half-savage impetuosity of his 
spirit. In a well-known and extremely clever pen- 
and-ink sketch, Maclise has portrayed Brougham as 
he appeared in 1834. The restless orator, fresh from 
the Lords, is discovered in his chambers, in dishevelled 
wig and gown, whilst the clock is on the stroke of 



74 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

three, hard at work witli bent head and flying quill, on 
a caustic leader for the Times, on the subject of last 
night's debate. Lord Holland once assured Brougham 
that he believed that if a new language was discovered 
in the morning, he would be able to talk it before 
night ; and his rival. Lord Campbell, was accustomed 
to declare that if Harry Brougham was locked up in 
the Tower for a year without a single book, the twelve 
months would not roll past ere he had written an 
encyclopaedia. Indeed, the impression Brougham 
made upon friends and foes alike for aptitude in the 
acquisition of knowledge, and versatility in its pursuit, 
appears only to have been paralleled in recent years by 
that exhibited by M. Gruizot, of whom it used to be 
said that the knowledge which he had gained in the 
morning, he repeated in the afternoon with the air of 
a man who had known it from all eternity. His 
vigorous and masculine sense was always at the call 
of human freedom, education, and enlightenment ; and 
if there was much to blame, there was also much to 
pity, and still more to respect and admire in the 
strange character and stormy career of Henry, Lord 
Brougham and Vaux. The great ability and versatile 
accomplishments of Brougham were freely drawn upon 
by Jeffrey during the period in which the Edin- 
burgh Review won reputation in the long and gallant 
contest which it consistently waged against every form 
of social and political injustice. 

When we recollect that Lord Brougham was un- 
questionably one of the ablest and most gifted men 
the century has seen, and that his public life, moreover, 
was so protracted that young men hardly out of their 
teens can recall hearing him speak, it is difficult to 
credit the fact that his career as a cabinet minister 



OF THE KEV. ISYL»NJi]Y SMITH. 



75 



had terminated for ever before the death of William IV. 
Lord Brougham, unfortunately for himself and for his 
country, was blessed with Tieither reserve nor dis- 
cretion ; he lacked self-control, and was at once too 
rash for a leader and too imperious for a partisan. 
Arrogant in manner, capricious in temper, and violent 
in speech ; admired, feared, and shunned ; he drifted 
rapidly out of the main stream of national life, and 
falsified to a deplorable extent the great but just 
expectations which his extraordinary powers had done 
so much to raise in the common heart of the nation. 




CRAIG S CLOSE, EDINBURGH. 



76 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER IV. 

1798—1803. 

Life in Edinburgh as Tutor, Preacher, and Eeviewer. 

The remarkable influence which the Edinburgh Review 
succeeded in gaining was chiefly due to the needs of 
the hour, and the fact that the pens of Jeffrey, Horner, 
Brougham, and Sydney Smith were enlisted at the 
outset, and that its intellectual prowess was augmented 
from time to time by such distinguished recruits as 
Scott, Carlyle, and Macaulay. These, together with 
scores of able men less known to fame, gave the " Buff 
and Blue" a position of singular authority in the 
political and literary life of the period. Its appearance 
was hailed by the friends of progress throughout the 
length and breadth of the land, as a cheering sign of 
the times, and the decided liberality of its tone infused 
fresh courage into the breasts of the despised and 
almost discomfited advocates of reform. Questions 
which had long lain dormant in men's minds leaped to 
the light of public discussion, and the scattered and 
broken ranks of the opponents of intolerance and 
oppression were reunited for a more vigorous struggle 
under the standard which had thus unexpectedly been 
uplifted in their midst. " It is impossible," is the 



OP THE RRV. SYDNEY SMITH. 11 

testimony of the friend and biographer of Jeffrey, 
" for those who did not hve at the time, and in the 
heart of the scene, to feel, or almost to understand, the 
impression made by the new luminary, or the anxieties 
with which its motions were observed. * * * The 
learning of the new journal, its talent, its spirit, its 
writing, its independence, were all new ; and the sur- 
prise was increased by a work so full of public life 
springing up suddenly in a remote part of the kingdom. 
The effect was electrical." ' Jeffrey himself was at first 
by no means sanguine as to the wisdom of the resolu- 
tion which had been carried with acclamation over 
the supper-table in Buccleuch Place, and even on the 
eve of publication he seems to have dreaded that they 
had missed the opportune moment and lost the tide 
that was in their favour. " We are bound for a year 
to the booksellers, and shall drag through that, I sup- 
pose, for our own indemnification," was his rather 
dreary and not reassuring statement to an anxious 
friend." But the success of the Review in spite of 
such gloomy forebodings, was not only immediate, but 
went far out beyond the dreams of the most sanguine 
of its promoters. Another and more favourable 
opportunity will occur in the course of this narrative 
for an estimate of Sydney Smith's share in the work 
which was thus begun ; meanwhile, however, a passing 
glimpse in this connection at the nature of the gifts 
which he brought to the common enterprise may not 
be out of place. 

Sydney Smith did not possess the analytical skill of 

' " Life of Lord Jeffrey," vol. i. p. 131, by Henry, Lord 
Cockburn. 

^ Ibid., vol. i. p. 120. 



78 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Jeffrey, nor the philosophic grasp of Horner, nor the 
powerful invective of Brougham, but in his own way 
he was inimitable, and had nothing to fear by a com- 
parison with the most distinguished of his colleagues. 
In actual knowledge both of literature and the world, 
Jeffrey was certainly his superior, and probably both 
Brougham and Horner out-distanced him in this respect; 
but he possessed in the quality and scope of his native 
powers a splendid recompense. If it is the perfection 
of art to conceal art, the art of Sydney Smith ap- 
proached very nearly to that climax. A master of 
clear statement, his style is brilliant and yet familiar ; 
and, whilst singularly bold and adventurous, is marked 
by great beauty and an unfailing grace of expression. 
His sentences revive the attention of the most listless, 
and brighten the dullest eye, not only through their 
fresh and unconventional structure, but because they 
are weighted with wisdom and winged with wit.- 
Simple but original, imaginative and yet practical, 
homely and yet humorous, his writings carry their own 
credentials, and successfully appeal — with a happy 
absence of effort — to all sorts and conditions of men, 
and are, indeed, what Lord Lyttleton once aptly de- 
scribed them, a " most exquisite contribution to the 
innocent gaiety of mankind." 

He was intrepid and unflinching in his investigation 
of alleged abuses of all kinds, and throughout a pro- 
tracted career he waged bold and successful warfare — 
often single-handed — -against bigotry, hypocrisy, and 
superstition. His mind moved quickly, and by his 
extraordinary insight and powers of expression, he was 
able to compel everything he handled to reveal itself 
to the public gaze in what he believed to be its true 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 79 

colours. The reader of to-day who turns to refresh 
his mind with the mischievous saUies and sparkhng 
common sense of Sydney Smith, hardly knows which 
to admire most — his vivacity or his vigour, and is 
equally delighted with the spontaneous flow of his 
humour and the honesty of purpose by which it is 
directed and curbed. His humour was genial, frolic- 
some, and healthy ; it ran like a golden thread through 
all his articles, and lit up in the most unexpected manner 
subjects of the driest kind, and arguments of the most 
recondite description. His style is so clear and crisp 
that he who runs may read, and his illustrations are so 
felicitous that all who read must laugh. Although his 
judgment was not by any means infallible, nor his 
prejudices small, he was as fearless a man as ever held 
a pen, and there is no exaggeration in saying that he 
employed it through long years of influence and power 
to arouse and enlighten public opinion, and to create 
in the minds of men a sentiment generous to virtue, 
hostile to vice, and fatal to oppression. 

Like Jeffrey, the " master critic," as he styled him, 
Sydney Smith, the " journeyman critic," as ho termed 
himself, had no love for abstract theories or vasrue 
speculations, and tedious inquiries and protracted 
debates inspired him with undisguised dismay. He 
liked to get to the point of a question as rapidly as 
possible, and, having done so, he expressed the result 
tersely and clearly in words which " stuck and stayed." 
It is always a pleasure, if one is interested at least in 
the work which is going forward, to hear the sound of 
a hammer when every blow strikes the nail on the head, 
and that is precisely the sensation which a friend of 
progress obtains from a perusal of Sydney Smith's 



80 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

spirited and generous pages. He laboured in the 
common cause of liberty and truth in an uncommon 
way, for he seemed to see at a glance conclusions 
which less lifted mortals took half a lifetime to dis- 

a 

cover. With a stroke of that wonderful pen, he was 
able to coin his opinion into some happy phrase which 
took the world by storm, and revealed as much to the 
multitude about the question in hand as a regiment of 
scholars could have explained in a week. Many a 
worn commonplace, moreover, renewed its youth, and 
went on its way rejoicing in the magic transformation 
accomplished on its behalf, by his extraordinary powers 
of expression. He appeared to take every one into his 
confidence, and to address the reader with the perfectly 
natural and unembarrassed manner of a man who is 
talking to his familiar friend. People turn to a book 
of his expecting to be confronted merely with the 
arguments and opinions of an author, but after they 
have read a few pages, they discover to their surprise 
that they have stumbled into the company of a friend. 
Like all frank people, Sydney Smith has been a good 
deal misunderstood, and his fearless honesty and 
candour have been turned into weapons against 
himself. 

It must, of course, be admitted not only that his 
judgment was sometimes in error, but also that he was 
a man who never approached certain subjects without 
displaying the fact that^his mind was warped, so far as 
they were concerned, by invincible prejudice. But 
although he completely misunderstood the Wesleyan 
Revival, and grossly caricatured the splendid efforts 
of the Nonconformist churches of this land to awaken 
the religious enthusiasm of the people in the work of 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 81 

Foreign Missions, it cannot be questioned, in spite of 
such blemishes on his reputation, that his influence as 
a whole was given steadily and at much personal cost 
to the advocacy of the very principles of liberty and 
toleration which have now triumphed to such an 
extent that his own essays on the Dissenters and their 
Missionary schemes, are little more than a magazine 
of exploded fallacies, and read like the records of an 
archaic period. Sydney Smith misunderstood the 
evangelical enthusiasm, and refused to separate the 
chaff of fanaticism from the wheat of self-sacrifice, 
but his sweeping tirades have long since been refuted 
by exoerience, and aofo-ressive work in heathen lands 
forms now a recognized sphere of activity amongst 
Christians of every shade of conviction, and — judged 
by its fruits — is unassailable. 

Not unfrequently, moreover, people have spoken 
and written of Sydney Smith in a semi- patronizing 
strain as only a jester ; and it has almost seemed at 
times, to those who knew him intimately, as if the 
brilliancy of his wit had obscured to no small extent 
the general appreciation of his wisdom and his worth. 
It is a cherished fallacy with multitudes to imagine 
that a witty man is always shallow, and Sydney him- 
self was not blind to that fact, for he has declared 
that the " moment an envious pedant sees anything 
written with pleasantry he comforts himself that it 
must be superficial."^ Perhaps the tears of merry 
laughter for which he is himself responsible, have 
blinded even generous eyes to the moral no less than 
the intellectual stature of an author who habitually 
used ridicule as a weapon against wrong. Often in 
^ Edinburgh Review, vol. xvi. p. 186. 



82 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

this dull world a specially capable man gains a repu- 
tation for wit at the expense of one for wisdom, and 
tliere are in society at all times, a number of persons 
who are dense enough to regard a humourist, however 
subtle or sagacious, as only a kind of educated buffoon, 
or a modern representative of the court fool of former 
ages. Unfortunately, however, for the credit of 
humanity, there are in every circus more clowns out- 
side the ring than within it, and in every theatre — 
even when the audience is " most select " — there are 
more knaves present than those who bear that 
character upon the stage. Sydney Smith often 
shocked weak and silly people, unable to understand 
a joke, and held in bondage by extreme notions of 
propriety and decorum; but all who were able to judge 
righteous judgment were not slow to discern the 
earnest moral purpose and wholesome nature of much 
of his bold and outspoken satire. His wit was indeed 
but the vehicle for his wisdom, and the aim of his 
triumphant laughter was itself the best evidence of his 
commanding common sense. His dreaded powers of 
ridicule and sarcasm were employed to drive home his 
argument, and they never appeared without a purpose, 
and seldom disappeared before they had accomplished 
it ; and their exercise was softened by kindliness of 
disposition, and restrained by religious principle. 

Every one is aware that some of the happiest jokes 
of Sydney Smith were directed against his own order, 
but they were concerned with ecclesiastical subjects 
rather than with anything more sacred. If there was 
satire in these playful allusions, it was aimed at sins 
of omission and commission in the ranks of the clergy, 
which not even the most zealous partisan would dare 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 83 

to defend. Men who scoffed at religion were utterly 
repugnant to Sydney Smith; in their presence his 
mirth vanished, and if his wit flashed out for a moment, 
it was only to assail so unpardonable an offender. 
There is a story told of a dinner-party at Holland 
House, at which one of the guests, who had been 
loudly boasting that he believed in nothing, suddenly 
fell into a gourmand's rapture over a dainty dish, and 
asked for another helping of it. " Ah," said Sydney 

in his driest tones, " I am glad to see that Mr. 

at all events believes in the cook ! " * 

In one of the early note-books of Sydney Smith 
(placed through the kindness of his grand-daughter. 
Miss Holland, at the disposal of the writer) occurs a 
short essay which was apparently written during his 
residence in Edinburgh ; and as it is believed that it 
has not hitherto seen the light, its introduction here 
may interest many, especially as its theme is one on 
which he was so well qualified to speak. It bears the 
somewhat ambitious title of a " Treatise on Wit and 
Humour," and it is interesting not only in itself, but 
as the germ of the later reflections on the same subject 
which were given to the world during the dehvery of 
his Lectures on Moral Philosophy. 

A Treatise on Wit and Humour. 
Wit is an act of intellectual power evinced in 
discovering relations between ideas which excite sur- 
prise, and surprise only. The pleasure we derive 
from wit proceeds from our surprise, and at the skill 
of the discoverer. Surprise is an essential ingredient 

* " Holland House," by the Princess Marie Liechtenstein, chap, 
iv. p. 102. 



84 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

of wit, for wit will not bear repetition. We may- 
derive pleasure from repeating to others that wit 
which first excited our surprise, but this is a pleasure 
of a very different nature ; the sudden joy, the flash 
of astonishment cannot be re-kindled in our minds, 
however delighted we may be in witnessing the same 
excitement in the minds of others. The greater the 
surprise, the greater the pleasure. Wit is always en- 
livened not only when no relation is expected between' 
those ideas in which a relation has been discovered, 
but when it appears to us that the ideas are com- 
pletely disconnected together, and that they can have 
no positive relation. Voltaire was praising Haller to 
a Swiss gentleman. " I am astonished," said the 
Swiss, " you should speak so well of Haller, for he is 
outrageous in his abuse of you." " Well, well," re- 
plied Voltaire, " I believe the truth is, we have both 
formed very erroneous notions of each other." Here 
surprise is excited by the connection discovered be- 
tween the apparent candour and the real severity of 
Voltaire. We expect from the first physiognomy of 
the answer that he is going to say something kind 
and conciliatory of his enemy, when at the same 
moment he overwhelms him. with the keenest satire. 
Boileau and his brother were talking over their com- 
parative advantages and disadvantages in life. " I will 
confess, however, my dear Abbe," said Boileau, " one 
instance in which fortune has been kindest to you ; in 
point of brothers, you have decidedly the advantage 
of me. In that respect there can be no sort of com- 
parison between us." Here the surprise is excited by 
finding that the apparent concession of the poet is a 
real superiority claimed ; we expected a connection 
between the admission of Boileau and his own infe- 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 85 

riority of condition ; we find exactly tlie contrary. 
The surprise, therefore, is always increased when the 
notion of a disconnection between the ideas is excited 
and a connection discovered ; or, on the contrary, 
when the notion of a connection is excited, and a 
disconnexion discovered. 

When the surprise excited by the discovery of 
a new relation between ideas is mingled with any 
other strong feeling than surprise — when great 
terror, when strong approbation are excited by the 
discovery — then the sensation of wit is almost en- 
tirely lost, and merges into the stronger accom- 
panying sensations. Sir Isaac Newton discovered 
a new relation between water and the diamond. 
When the mind first perceives their affinity to each 
other in their mode of refracting light and their com- 
bustibility, the first sensation excited has some faint 
analogy to that of wit, but the great approbation of 
the genius of the discoverer, and a strong sense of 
th.e utility and importance of such discoveries, mingle 
themselves with the feeling of surprise, and the whole 
effect upon the mind is very different from that of a 
mere witty relation of ideas. In looking over the 
various parts of a steam-engine, the mind is repeat- 
edly affected by sensations resembling those of wit — 
the mode in which the valves open and shut ; the con- 
nection between the centrifugal force and the slow and 
quiet motion of the machine in that part called the 
regulator, are sensations very analogous to those of 
wit ; but at the same moment we begin to speculate 
upon the importance of the discovery, to reason upon 
its utility, and the sensation of surprise no longer 
remains pure and unmixed. In the mind of a child 
capable of understanding these mechanical discoveries, 



86 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the unexpected relation between the parts and move- 
ments would excite nearly the same feelings as wit 
would do; he would enjoy the pure surprise, and 
speculate little, or not at all, upon the matter. 

The relationship which existed between Sydney 
Smith and Michael Beach in Edinburgh partook rather 
of the nature of an intimate friendship than of any- 
thing more formal. Sydney Smith treated his com- 
panion more as a younger brother than a pupil, and 
so fully did he enter into the enjoyments, as well as 
the studies of the youth under his charge, that he 
quickly secured his affection, as well as his respect. 
Two or three letters written at this period by him, 
to his old friends at Nether Avon House, reveal not 
only the manner of life of the young squire, but also 
afford a passing glimpse of events which were happening 
in the great world around. 

[vi.] 38, South Hanover Street, Edinburgh, 

4th November, 1798. 

My dear Sir, — We are all extremely well, and 

Michael and myself are very good friends. The courier 

is amazingly admired by the Scotch maid-servants, 

and takes great pains about his hair, &c. He is an 

excellent servant, and saves me a world of trouble. 

I congratulate you most sincerely upon our change of 

situation for the better. Ireland safe, and Buonaparte 

embayed in Egypt, that is surrounded by Beys. 

That we should sit under our vines and fig-trees in 

safety, I do not expect, for that very excellent reason, 

that we have none to sit under; but that we shall sit 

round our beef and puddings in security again, I think 

there is a very fair reason to expect. This place grows 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 87 

upon US both, we are extremely comfortably situated, 
and have thoughts of never coming back. We are 
very much obliged to you for the papers which give 
us a little county intelligence from time to time ; of 
course there is no such thing in Edinburgh as an 
English county newspaper. Some of the French 
oflQcers are come here captured by Captain Moore, 
with them is a lady in blue silk pantaloons, who, I 
suppose, was to be the new Queen of Ireland. My 
best regards to Mrs. Beach, and believe me, my dear 
sir, yours most sincerely, 

Sydney Smith. 
To Mr. Beach. 

The year 1798 was a critical and anxious period for 
the English Government ; for there were troubles at 
home as well as abroad, and the Society of United 
Irishmen, led by a barrister of revolutionary sym- 
pathies, was endeavouring, with the aid of French 
bayonets, to establish an Irish Republic. When 
Sydney Smith wrote the above letter in November of 
that year, the fierce and lawless insurrection of the 
peasantry had been crushed, and the French invasion 
under Hoche repelled ; but, although Ireland was 
" safe," and " Buonaparte embayed in Egypt," and the 
services of the lady in " blue silk pantaloons " were 
no longer needed in British domains, Ireland probably 
was never more nearly lost to the English crown. 

In speaking of their own private affairs, he informs 
Mr. Beach not only that his pupil and himself are 
very much at home in Edinburgh, but also that so far 
as their residence at 38, South Hanover Street is con- 
cerned, they are "extremely comfortably situated." 
Almost, however, before this epistle had time to reach 
its destination the writer's tranquillity was rudely dis- 



88 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

turbed. For, with the approach of winter, an invasion 
of Edinburgh took place of a very harmless but 
annoying kind, and Sydney Smith has related, in a 
well-known letter (which was first published in Lady 
Holland's *' Memoir," and is reproduced in these pages 
in facsimile from the original document, through 
the kindness of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), his first 
acquaintance with the horrors of a state of siege. 

He remained "lord of the castle" until the follow- 
ing May, when he came back to England for the 
summer vacation with his pupil ; on their return to 
Scotland, however, in the autumn of 1799, acting on 
the principle of once bitten, twice shy, they made, as 
we have already seen, 19, Queen Street their temporary 
home. Writing to Mrs. Beach to inform her as to 
the time of their journey south, he expresses his regret 
at the illness of a lady — one of his former parishioners 
at Nether Avon — and adds some general reflections 
concerning the courage of women, which most people 
will probably be inclined, from their own observation 
of character, to endorse. 

[vii.] 38, South Hanover Street, Edinburgh, 

February 21st, 1799. 

My dear Madam, — In May, then, you may expect 
to see my goodly personage, with Michael at my heels, 
and you will find us both, I daresay, as we are at this 
moment, plump, and in good condition. I am sorry 

to hear that poor Miss D still continues so ill. 

The termination of her life, I hope, will be pleasant 
and serene, the opening of it has been much other- 
wise. Yet she seems to bear it extremely well. I 
have always said that the heroism and courage of men 
is nothing in comparison with these qualities as they 



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4^^ 4 < 'lit 



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OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMIT^. 89 

are developed in womeD. Women cannot face danger 

accompanied with noise and smoke and hallooing, but 

in all kinds of severe peril and quiet horrors they have 

infinitely more philosophical endurance than men. 

Put a woman in a boat in a boisterous sea, let six or 

seven people make as much noise as they can, and she 

is in a state of inconceivable agony. Ask the same 

woman on a serene summer evening to drink a cup of 

poison for some good which would accrue from it to 

her husband and children, and she will swallow it like 

green tea. Your character of the Swiss philosopheress^ 

sounds wells. I should like to see her; you know 

what a coxcomb I am about physiognomy. 

Believe me, dear madam, yours very sincerely, 

Sydney Smith. 
To Mrs. Beach. 

The progress made by his son in his studies was duly 
reported from time to time to the squire of Nether 
Avon, and every now and then the tutor's wit flashes 
out in the most unexpected way. " Michael," thus 
he reports in the spring of 1799, " has been learning 
to draw for some time. He makes horses and ducks 
and trees with Indian ink, as other people do ; but I 
am, unfortunately, no sort of judge of Indian ink 
ducks, though a connoisseur in that species of the 
animal so admirably adapted for roasting." 

Soon after their arrival in Scotland, Sydney Smith 
and his pupil made a short tour in the Highlands 
before settling down to their first winter's work in 
Edinburgh. They greatly enjoyed this excursion, and 
as the summer of 1799 drew on they longed to explore 

* A new governess -whicli Mrs. Beach had just obtained for her 
daughters. 



90 THE LIFE AND TfMES 

some other portion of the country, and eventually 
they determined, with the sanction of Mr. and Mrs. 
Beach, to make a tour in Wales before returning to 
Williamstrip. The pleasure of their former holiday 
had been lessened by the insecure and draughty con- 
dition of the carriages in which they had travelled, 
and the following amusing letter was despatched to 
Mrs. Beach, in the immediate prospect of their journey, 
to beg a favour, which was promptly granted. 

[viii.] 38, South Hanover Street, 

May 5th, 1799. 

My dear Madam, — Michael and myself both join 
in asking a favour of Mr. Beach. We found the in- 
conveniences so extremely great, from not having a 
carriage'with us, that we wish to hire one for the 
time of our excursion. You are not to form your 
ideas of chaises in Scotland and the North of England 
from what you see in the south. The chance is of 
not getting them at all, or getting them in so mutilated 
a state that it is not only discreditable and incon- 
venient, but positively unsafe to ride in them. We 
were put into chaises with half a bottom, with no 
glasses to the windows and fastenings to the door, 
and not unfrequently might have been taken for a 
party of united Scotchmen on our road to Newgate. 
I really think, if Mr. Beach could have seen our 
equipage, he would himself have proposed what we 
are now requesting. We are all in high spirits to- 
day at the defeat of the French, an event as unex- 
pected as it is important, for the nearer any nation is 
pushed to the extremity of its resources, the more 
critical is any defeat which they may sustain. God 
send it may be completely true, and well followed up 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 91 

by a numerous progeny of victories. Will you present 
my best regards to Mr. Beacli ? and believe me, my 
dear Madam, most sincerely yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

The journey through Wales was successfully accom- 
plished, and proved most interesting, and at its close 
Sydney Smith and his pupil parted, until autumn 
found them once more together on their way to the 
north. The following letter belongs to this period, 
and was written to Michael Beach, in answer to one 
received from him, in which, he gave an account of 
his holiday doings. There is no date nor heading to 
the original letter; it was evidently an enclosure in 
one to Mr. Beach, as it is directed simply " Michael." 

[IX.] 

My dear Comrade, — Your friendly letter gave me 
great pleasure, as it convinced me you were neither 
forgetful of me, nor of the advice I have taken the 
liberty of giving you. * * * J shudder, my dear 
Michael, when I reflect from what you have escaped. 
Dance at Cheltenham in a pepper-and-salt coat? Do 
you consider that any two justices might have pro- 
secuted you, and that the law must have taken its 
course ? The papers to-day promise us a new revolu- 
tion at Paris, but revolutions seem to be as natural to 
that government as to the heavenly bodies, and I no 
more aus^ur the dissolution of the one than the other 
from this cause. Is the wood house begun ? You 
should first recollect exactly the pattern of the house 
you saw at Lord Douglas's, and then proceed to 
execute it, which I think may be amusing enough for 
the summer months. My masterly taste indeed you 
will want, but' figure to yourself, as well as you can, 



92 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

everything I sliould advise, and then act directly the 
contrary, and by this means your wood house will be 
very pretty. Will you be so obliging as to write me 
a line when my trunk arrives at Williamstrip, where it 
has been sent about two days ago ? Your mother has 
got my circuit paper, and is acquainted with the 
line of my movements. I hope you sometimes take 
a book in hand ; as I have often told you — to enjoy 
the pleasures of doing nothing, we must do some- 
thing. Idle people know nothing of the pleasures 
of idleness ; it is a very difficult accomplishment to 
acquire in perfection. 

My dear Beach, adieu, and believe me. 

Yours ever most sincerely, 

Sydney Smith. 
My best regards to your father and mother. 

Michael Beach proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, 
at the close of his second year in Scotland, and so 
well satisfied were his parents with the progress 
he had made under Sydney Smith's care, that they 
requested him to remain in Edinburgh as tutor to 
their second son, William W. Beach, who afterwards 
entered Parliament as member for North Hampshire. 
Through the influence, in all probabiUty, of Pro- 
fessor Dugald Stewart, the ex-curate of Nether Avon 
was also requested to act in a similar capacity towards 
young Mr. Gordon of Ellon Castle ; so that Sydney 
Smith superintended the studies of three young men 
during the five years which he passed in Edinburgh. 
His connection, however, with William Beach and 
Alexander Gordon was severed by his determination 
to follow his friend Francis Horner to London in 
1803. Both young men, during the short time they 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 93 

enjoyed the advantage of his society and advice, en- 
deared themselves to him ; and they in turn, in after- 
life, ever referred to his influence and example in 
terms of gratitude and respect. In his intercourse with 
his pupils he always sought to act in accordance Avitli 
what he believed to be the true object of education, 
and so endeavoured to implant, as he himself ex- 
presses it, resources that will endure as long as life 
endures, habits that will ameliorate not destroy, occu- 
pations that will render sickness tolerable, solitude 
pleasant, age venerable, life more dignified and use- 
ful, and therefore death less terrible. 

The house to which Sydney Smith took liis bride — 
the first home they could call their own — 46, George 
Street — has already been described ; and there they 
remained from the time of their arrival in Edinburgh 
in the autumn of 1800, until their removal to London 
in the summer of 1803. Their home life, which was 
quiet and simple, was brightened in the spring of 1802 
by the birth of their first child, a girl who received 
the name of Saba,; but long ere the year closed a dark 
shadow fell across the little household with the tidings 
of the death of Sydney's mother, to whom he had always 
been devotedly attached. 

Curiosity has often been expressed concerning the 
origin of a name as strange and mysterious as that of 
Saba, and there is no reason to conceal any longer the 
circumstances which led him to bestow it on his 
daughter. He maintained that parents who were 
compelled to inflict a trite and dismal patronymic like 
Smith on their innocent offspring, ought in com- 
passion, and by way of social compensation, to give 
with it also a Christian name a little less commonplace 
than the otherwise excellent John or Mary, Thomas or 



94 THE LIFE AND TMIES 

Sarah. His father — himself plain Robert Smith — had 
felt the inconvenience of being through life one of an 
army of Smiths and a regiment of Roberts, and he 
therefore resolved in the case of his children that, as 
he could not avert the primal misfortune, he would 
not — even for the sake of family traditions — add to it 
a secondary one. In harmony with this sensible 
and kindly forethought, his sons accordingly became 
Robert Percy, Sydney, Cecil, and Courtenay. 

The most distinguished of his children recognized 
the wisdom of his ancestor, in this direction at least, 
and resolved to follow, if blessed with heirs, the 
example which his father had set ; and that is the 
explanation of the names which he gave to his eldest 
daughter and her brothers, Douglas and Windham. 
The latter names sprang out of a little innocent hero- 
worship, and the former, though more obscure, was 
not evolved out of his own inner consciousness, as 
many people have supposed. Peculiar names always 
attracted his attention, and often drew forth his wit, 
and there are many instances of the droll manner in 
which his quick and nimble fancy would seize upon and 
play with a new idea thus suggested to his mind. He 
was determined that his little daughter should en- 
counter the world equipped with a distinctive and 
original name, and he eventually found it in the Prayer- 
book version of the Psalms of David : " The kings of 
Tharsis and of the isles shall give presents : the kings 
of Arabia and Saba shall bring gifts" (Ps. Ixxii. 10). 

Saba Smith not only grew up to womanhood, but 
married, in 1834, Dr. Henry Holland, and, as the sharer 
of that distinguished physician's honours, eventually 
became Lady Holland. She died in 1866, but not 
before she had made the world her debtor by the 



Of THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 95 

charming portrait of her father contained in the pages 
of the well-known " Memoir of the Rev. Sydney 
Smith," a book to which the writer of these pages is 
greatly indebted. 

Whilst in Edinburgh, besides superintending the 
studies of his pupils, and entering with them freely 
into the social life of the city, Sydney Smith attended 
the lectures on moral philosophy of Dugald Stewart at 
the University, and also found time to dabble in 
medicine, anatomy, and the rising science of political 
economy. With Dugald Stewart he lived on terms of 
intimacy, and another of his chief friends at this period 
was Dr. Thomas Brown, who was a constant visitor 
at 46, Queen Street, where, indeed, he regularly dined 
one day in every week. A few months before the 
Edinburgh Review was started, Walter Scott, at that 
time the youthful Sheriff of Selkirkshire, proposed to 
Jeffrey, Sydney Smith, Murray, Allen, Brown, and a 
few other kindred spirits, that they should form them- 
selves into a committee to bring together at a weekly 
re-union every one in the city who combined literary 
tastes with social instincts. The idea was heartily 
received and promptly carried out, and the new asso- 
ciation received the name of the Friday Club, from the 
fact that its meetings were held on that day. Besides 
the group of men first appealed to, the list of the 
original members of the club contains the names of 
Sir James Hall, Dugald Stewart, John Playfair, Archi- 
bald Alison, William Erskine, Henry Brougham, 
Francis Horner, Henry Mackenzie, Henry Cockburn, 
and Thomas Campbell, who had just risen to fame at 
one bo and by the publication of the " Pleasures of 
Hope." The club became one of the most dehghtful 
resorts in Edinburgh for all who possessed literary 



96 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

or scientific proclivities, and it materially helped, in 
turn, to quicken and elevate the social intercourse of 
the capital. " Our club comes on admirably," writes 
Jeffrey to his brother, soon after a start had been 
made. " We have got Dugald Stewart, the Man of 
Feeling,*^ Sir James Hall, John Playfair, and four or 
five more of the senior literati, and we sit chatting 
every week till two in the morning." ^ 

The men who thus met together had, for the most 
part, either won distinction in various fields, or were 
rapidly advancing towards it; and with them all, 
whether distinguished or not, the careless and cordial 
hours which they spent at the Friday Club in harmless 
pleasantry and animated discussion, remained in after- 
years, when scattered far and wide, a happy memory 
and a bond of fellowship. 

Not tlie least remarkable figure in the group of 
Sydney Smith's Edinburgh friends was John Leyden, 
known chiefly to the present generation as an 
enthusiastic Oriental scholar, who rivalled Sir William 
Jones himself in devotion to the mysterious litera- 
ture of the East ; and as a poet whom Sir Walter 
Scott admired and befriended in life, and whose 
memory and untimely fate he has enshrined in 
some well-known stanzas in the " Lord of the Isles." 
It is asserted, and apparently with some degree of 
truth, that Leyden, " an awkward, enthusiastic, un- 
gainly scholar — as rich in classical^ learning as he was 
poor in current coin," suggested to Scott the character 
of the redoubtable Dominie Sampson ; and the " pro- 
digious " learning and equal simplicity of the shepherd 

" Henry Mackenzie, author of the " Man of Feeling." 
' " Life of Lord Jeffrey," voL i. p. 151. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 97 

lad from Teviotdale at least lends colour to the story. 
Leyden's passion for knowledge knew no bounds ; his 
memory was as retentive as Brougham's, and his 
mental energy not less extraordinary. Educated for 
the Presbyterian ministry, he pursued his studies for 
a time in Edinburgh ; but at last, dazzled with Arabic 
and Persian lore, he grew restless, and determined, 
cost what it might, that he would pursue his researches 
in the East. His friends, recognizing his genius and 
industry, used their influence to obtain from Mr. Per- 
ceval a government appointment in India ; but a man 
of Leyden's stamp was scarcely likely to receive much 
encouragement from such a quarter, and the only 
result of the strong representations made on his behalf 
was an offer of the post of assistant surgeon. His 
friends were chagrined at the outcome of their efforts, 
but Leyden himself, not at all disconcerted, bent his 
undivided energies to the acquisition of the necessary 
knowledge. Amid the mingled amusement and admira- 
tion of those who knew him best, in six months the 
plucky student won his diploma. His difficulties, how- 
ever, were not yet at an end, for poverty, like an armed 
man, still stood in his path, and his resources were 
wholly inadequate to the demands made upon them 
for the provision of even the most slender outfit for 
India. From this dilemma he was rescued by Walter 
Scott, Sydney Smith, and a few others. Sydney — 
with characteristic generosity — managed to spare 
40Z. out of a purse that was by no means over- 
flowing, and the learned assistant-surgeon sailed for 
India in December 1802, with grateful feelings and 
boyish glee. The poor fellow never saw his native 
hills again. Nine years later, he was attacked by a 



98 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

fever, and died at the age of thirty-six, but so 
splendidly had he redeemed those years that he had 
not only risen to the rank of a judge in Calcutta, but 
had established a European reputation through his 
profound knowledge of the literature of the East. 

At a very early stage in their acquaintance Sydney 
Smith nicknamed Brougham the " Drum-major," a 
title which he had earned by his marvellous command 
of high-sounding declamation, and he once told 
Moore ^ — in speaking of the fun which they had to- 
gether at the outstart of the Edinburgh Review — that a 
certain article appeared in 1803, entitled " Ritson on 
Abstinence from Animal Food," which he and the future 
Lord Chancellor one night in merry mood concocted. 
" We take it for granted " (wrote Brougham), " that 
Mr. Ritson supposes Providence to have had some 
share in producing him," " though for what inscru- 
table purpose" (added Syduey), "we profess our- 
selves unable to conjecture." Jeffrey probably ran 
his pen through the audacious sentence, or perhaps 
its authors themselves felt that it would not bear the 
sober light of day ; at all events, the article on Mr. 
Ritson's theories duly appeared, without the slightest 
allusion to the " inscrutable purpose " involved in 
that gentleman's creation. The following unpublished 
note to Jeffrey belongs to this period, and it shows 
that Sydney Smith felt that he was open to the charge 
of " excessive levity," and was preparing himself for 
the strictures of his more sober-minded colleague. 

[x.] Burnt Island, July 22nd, 1802. 

My dear Jeffrey, — You may very possibly con- 

* Life of Moore, by Lord John Eussell, vol. vii. p. 13. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



99 



sider some passages in my reviews as a little in- 
judicious and extravagant, if you happen to cast your 
eyes upon them. Never mind, let them go away 
with their absurdity unadulterated and pure. If I 
please, the object for which I write is attained ; if 
I do not, the laughter which follows my error is 
the only thing which can make me cautious and 
tremble. 

Yours ever, 

Sydney Smith. 




THE TOLBOOTH, CAN0NG4TE, EDINBURGH. 



100 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER V. 

1803. 
Arrival in London, and early struggles there. 

The year 1803 was an important one to Sydney 
Smith, for it witnessed his removal from the Scottish 
capital to London, which, in an unpubHshed letter 
of the same date, he describes as " that pleasing 
but detestable place." Two of his pupils had by 
this time finished their studies in Edinburgh, and 
were on the eve of proceediug to Oxford, whilst the 
third was rapidly preparing to follow their example. 
He himself, in spite of the demands of his pupils, the 
Edinburgh Revieiv, the Episcopalians in Rose Street, 
and an ever-widening circle of friends, had some- 
how found time to study moral philosophy and 
to dabble in medicine, and both accomplishments 
were soon to be called into requisition. It was only 
after much anxious thought, and not a few misgiv- 
ings, that he determined to remove to London. His 
friends at Nether Avon heard of this resolution with 
sincere regret, and did their utmost to persuade him to 
remain in Scotland for at least another year, when 
William Beach would be ready to join his brother at 
Christ Church. This proposal was, however, promptly 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 101 

though gratefully declined, and on grounds which 
sensible people like Mr. and Mrs. Beach could not 
gainsay. "It is a matter of real regret," wrote 
Sydney, " that I should be compelled to decline any 
proposal which it would give you pleasure that I 
should accept. I have one child, and I expect an- 
other ; it is absolutely my duty that I should make 
some exertion for their future support. The salary 
you give is liberal; I live here in ease and abun- 
dance, but a situation in this country leads to nothing. 
I have to begin the world at the end of three years, 
at the very same point where I set out from ; it would 
be the same at the end of ten. I should return to 
London, my friends and connections mouldered away, 
my relatives gone and dispersed, and myself about to 
begin to do at the age of forty what I ought to have 
begun to do at the age of twenty-five. * * * I could 
not hold myself justified to my wife and family if I 
were to sacrifice any longer to the love of present ease, 
those exertions which every man is bound to make for 
the improvement of his situation." ^ He then proceeds 
in the same letter to allay the natural but needless 
fears of the anxious parents for their son, and to 
combat the notion that the youth — whose character 
he warmly commends — is unfit, to stand alone amid 
the inevitable temptation of a student's life in a city 
like Edinburgh. After laying down the principle that 
if a young man at twenty is unable to meet the little 
world of a university, he will be unable at any age to 
face the great world outside it, he adds, " To accustom 
men to great risks, you must expose them when boys to 

^ " Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith," chap, iv. p. 57. 



102 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

lesser ones. If you attempt to avoid all risks, you do 
an injury infinitely greater than any you shun." Such 
words, revealing as they do a deep acquaintance with 
the human heart, and a generous confidence in its free 
movements, are worthy of the thoughtful consideration 
of all who have the care of youth. To instil right 
principles, and then to trust them to the utmost, has 
been proved again and again to be the best method 
towards ensuring a robust and disciplined character. 
The puling virtue which needs a cloister to protect it, 
is not that which can overcome the world. 

Sydney Smith's resolution to leave Edinburgh was 
undoubtedly a wise one. The position of a private 
tutor — irksome and precarious in itself — is precisely 
one of those occupations which are advantageous 
rather as a means than as an end, and which no man 
of spirit and ability is ever content — except under 
very exceptional circumstances — to regard as a final 
goal. A just appreciation of the increased responsi- 
bilities which his marriage had imposed upon him, 
led him to determine upon some course of action 
more likely than his position in Edinburgh, to ad- 
vance the interests of those whom he loved best. 
There are some indications that a more momentous 
question than any involved in a severance of present 
ties and total change of scene, was occasioning anxious 
concern to him at this critical juncture in his affairs. 
The Edinhurgli Beview was only beginning its career, 
and not even the most sanguine of the group of young 
men with whom it originated, and in whose hands its 
fortune lay, had the faintest conception of the in- 
fluence and fame which it was destined by their efforts 
and the needs of the hour to gain and keep. Periodi- 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITE. 103 

cal literature, moreover, had not at that time the induce- 
ments to offer, to men of ready and original pens, with 
which it tempts the ranks of other professions to-day. 
Some of Sydney Smith's critics have said over 
and over again that he missed his way in life, and 
that he committed a great mistake when he entered 
the Church, where, indeed, he was always the round 
man in the square hole. From one point of view, 
there was not a little, as years rolled on, calculated to 
lead Sydney Smith himself to the same conclusion. 
Promotion, which at that period at least was not 
always by merit, came with very tardy steps towards 
a man who is now commonly regarded as one of the 
most sagacious and able Churchmen of his age ; and he 
felt keenly the slow recognition which his abilities 
received. In his later years he came, as all the world 
knows, into public collision with the Ecclesiastical 
Commission, and the form in which he waged warfare 
was a series of pungent " Letters to Archdeacon 
Singleton," in which he maintained, with his usual 
vigour of style and felicity of illustration, that the 
commissioners had been invested with too great 
power, and that in the exercise of it, the interests of 
those who most needed protection and help — the 
inferior clergy — had been grievously overlooked. 
" You tell me," he exclaims, " I shall be laughed at as 
a rich and overgrown Churchman. Be it so. I have 
been laughed at a hundred times in my life, and care 
little or nothing about it. If I am well provided for 
now, I have had my fall share of the blanks in the 
lottery as well as the prizes. * * * In my grand 
climacteric, I was made canon of St. Paul's ; and 
before that period I had built a parsonage-house with 



104 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

farm offices for a large farm, whicli cost me 4000/., 
and had reclaimed another from ruins at the expense 
of 2000L A lawyer or a physician in good practice 
would smile at this picture of great ecclesiastical 
wealth, and yet I am considered a perfect monster of 
ecclesiastical prosperity." 

* When Sydney Smith bade farewell to his friends in 
the north and prepared to leave Edinburgh, he was 
rapidly approaching his thirty-third year, and his 
prospects in his profession were the reverse of satis- 
factory; as for his means, all that can be said is 
this, they were as narrow as his views were liberal. 
His political convictions proved to be a barrier to his 
promotion in the Church, and because he ventured 
not only to think for himself, but also to publish his 
conclusions, he was regarded for a long term of years 
with coldness and suspicion. He was accordingly 
left to fight his own way in life, and had the mortifi- 
cation of seeing scores of his intellectual inferiors 
become, one after another in dismal procession, his 
ecclesiastical superiors. 

The interest which men feel in the progress of 
Sydney Smith's career is heightened by the glimpse of 
irresolution which is apparent in his attitude towards 
his profession in the spring of 1803 ; and the resolution 
at which he eventually arrived after days of suspense 
which were marked by " much deliberation," was one 
which throws into bold relief both his fidelity to duty 
and the disinterested zeal with which he obeyed its 
every known behest. Having entered the Church, he 
felt that its vows were upon him, and therefore, dis- 
missing all dreams of honour in other directions, he 
elected to remain where he was, and to seek through 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 105 

" patient continuance in well doing " the elevation of 
others, and, in the noblest sense, his own. If, in 
arriving at this conclusion, he missed success in life, 
or even a degree of it, it must at least be admitted 
that he shared such failure in noble company. Men 
who enter the ministry are usually supposed — at least 
by those who credit them with common honesty — to 
be actuated by motives which a shower of gold fails 
to satisfy, and to covet better and more enduring 
rewards than treasures on earth. 

Although the official connection of Sydney Smith 
with the Beach family terminated with his removal 
from Edinburgh, the closer ties of sympathy and 
respect bound him more intimately than ever to his 
friends at Williamstrip, and in after-years the inter- 
course was renewed whenever opportunity permitted. 
Mr. Beach had smoothed the path of the young couple 
by his kindly gift on their entrance upon their Edin- 
burgh life ; and now that they were about to quit that 
city he again came to their help and offered them his 
carriage in which to perform the long and tedious 
journey to the south. The following note contains 
Sydney Smith's acknowledgments of this graceful 
act, and reveals the sense of loneliness which the 
departure for India of the last of his three brothers 
occasioned the struggling young clergyman. 



[xi.] George Street, Edinburgh, 

26tli April, 1803. 

My deae Sir, — I am extremely obliged to you for 
your kindness in lending us your chaise ; it will be a 
great comfort to Mrs. Smith, and she joins me in 



106 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

acknowledging the obligation. * * * Mrs. Smith and 
myself intend, if she is well recovered by that time, 
to be in London by the beginning of September. I 
have heard of my brother (Bobus) a day's sail from 
the Land's End, and hardly expect to hear from him 
again before he arrives in India. I feel quite an exile 
in England. I am almost tempted to consider India 
as my native country from the number of relatives I 
have there. 

Believe me, my dear sir, 

Your obliged and affectionate friend, 

Sydney Smith. 

Michael H. Beach, Esq., M.P. 

Accompanied by his wife and child, he left Edin- 
burgh on the 8th of August, 1803. They found it 
hard work parting with so many kind and true friends, 
and after the last farewell had been uttered they 
looked long and wistfully at the receding outlines of the 
Castle and Arthur's Seat. " I shall be," said Sydney, 
as he thought of the prospect before him, " like a full- 
grown tree transplanted, deadly sick at first, with bare 
and ragged fibres, shorn of many a root." His first 
letter to Jeffrey after his departure from the north 
affords some indication of what it had cost him to 
determine on that step : — " I left Edinburgh with 
great heaviness of heart. I knew what I was leaving, 
and was ignorant to what I was going. My good 
fortune will be very great if I should ever again fall 
into the society of so many liberal, correct, and in- 
structive men, and live with them on such terms of 
friendship as I have done with you, and you know 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 107 

whom at Edinburgh." ^ In another of his early letters 
to the same friend, the warmth of his feelings towards 
the beautiful city which he had left behind finds frank 
avowal : — " I shall always love Edinburgh very dearly. 
I will come and visit it very often if I am ever rich, 
and I think it very likely one day or another I may 
live there entirely." ^ 

Sydney Smith knew little of London, and London 
knew less of him, when he arrived there to push his 
way in life one autumn day, eighty years ago. If, 
however, he was still a poor and comparatively an 
unknown man, he had already gained the affection of 
a small circle of friends, had won a degree of repu- 
tation, and was animated moreover by the sense of 
conscious power. In spite, therefore, of his protests 
to Mr. Beach that he was starting in the world again 
at the end of three years, exactly at the same point 
from which he had set out, in reality he began his 
career in London quickened, enriched, and to some 
extent equipped, not less perhaps by the tentative and 
half-baffled endeavours than by the accomplished work 
of the crucial years of opening manhood. The wel- 
come which he immediately received at the hands of 
many good and able men did much to dispel the de- 
pression Oi spirits which his departure from Edinburgh 
had occasioned him. Foremost to hail his arrival and 
to endeavour to make him feel at home amid his new 
surroundings was the Knight of the Shaggy Eyebrows, 
as he was accustomed to call his friend Horner. He 
arrived in the south just in time to take part in a con- 
tested election at Oxford, and Horner went down with 

' Published Correspondence, p. 288. ' Ibid. p. 293. 



108 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

him to the University, a visit which revived the 
memory of his student days at New College. 

On their return to town, Sydney Smith appears to 
have taken apartments at 11 , Upper Guildford Street, 
where, however, he only remained for a few months. 
Soon after he went there we find him writing in hot 
haste and with pardonable pride, to inform Jeffrey that 
it is the " universal opinion that our Beview is un- 
commonly well done, and that it is, perhaps, the first 
in Europe." ^ The same letter contains an amusing 
account of Horner, who it seems was inclined to seize 
more books for criticism than he could possibly deal 
with, and whom his colleague describes as " a sort of 
literary tiger, whose den is strewed with ten times 
more victims than he can devour." 

Life in lodgings, especially in a great city, and 
with young children, is not a very exhilarating 
state of existence, and it was not long, therefore, 
before Sydney Smith established himself in a small 
house, No. 8, Doughty Street, Russell Square. It 
is interesting to know that Charles Dickens, a 
generation later, also lived in this street at the 
period when Pichivich was finished, and Oliver Ttoist 
and Nicholas Nichleby took the world by storm. 
Sydney Smith, always quick to recognize genius, was 
one of the first to admit the extraordinary fidelity and 
humour which distinguished the portraits which Dickens 
drew from life. In his published correspondence there 
are several kindly letters addressed to the young novelist, 
and the earliest of them was written to the inventor 
of Mr. Pickwick, when he was living in Doughty Street, 
not many doors off the house which, thirty-five years 
* Published Correspondence, p. 289. 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 109 

before, liad been the home of the man who made the 
Enghsh people acquainted with the adventures of 
Dame Partington and the opinions of Peter Plyraley. 
In that letter, Sydney Smith states that the Miss 
Berry s have commissioned him to invite Mr. Dickens 
to dinner at Richmond, in order that he may meet 
"a Canon of St. Paul's, the Rector of Combe-Florey, 
and the Yicar of Halberton — all equally well known 
to you." ^ The neighbourhood of Russell Square 
was, at the beginning of the century, a favourite 
locality with lawyers and literary men, and that fact 
seems to have induced him to take up his residence in 
Doughty Street. 

The spring of 1804 was made memorable to the 
household in Doughty Street by the birth of Sydney 
Smith's eldest son, a child who died in infancy. Mrs. 
Pybus died shortly before the young couple turned 
their faces to the south, and she bequeathed to her 
daughter Kate her valuable jewels. Mrs. Smith, with 
great good sense, came to the conclusion that such 
costly ornaments would be quite out of place in the 
personal adornment of a poor clergyman's wife; she 
was anxious, moreover, to obtain a little money to 
lessen the anxiety of her husband's struggling and 
straitened lot. Almost her first act in London, there- 
fore, was to sell her mother's pearls. She herself 
wrote in her old age the following simple account of 
that brave W'Omanly action : — " I took the pearls to 
Rundell and Bridges, and sold them for 500/. This 
was converting them into a much more useful purpose, 
and all we most wanted was obtained." In itself that 

* Published Correspondence, p. 547. 



110 THE LIFE AND T[MES 

business visit of the timid young wife's to the great 
west-end jewellers to sell her mother's pearls, was per- 
haps only a trivial and not uncommon affair, but it is 
at least worthy of passing notice, since it is precisely 
by such unobtrusive and matter-of-fact acts of de- 
votion that the beauty and strength of an unselfish, 
nature leap to light. Botli Sydney Smith and his 
wife, even in circles where such candour ran the 
greatest risk of being misunderstood, had tlie courage 
to confess their poverty at once, and they discovered, 
Sydney declared, that in addition to the feeling of in- 
dependeuce it gave them, it had the further advantage 
of rendering half their wants needless. 

Francis Horner was already on the high road to 
legal distinction when his old comrade arrived in the 
metropolis, and although he still stood somewhat in 
dread of the quips and cranks of his reverend friend, 
he hailed his advent with much pleasure, and tlirougli 
his influence Sydney Smith soon found himself wel- 
comed into the midst of a briglit and busy circle of 
kindred spirits. Sir Samuel Romilly, Sir James 
Mackintosh, Dr. Marcet, Mr. Scarlett (afterwards 
Lord Abinger), and Mr. Ward (afterwards Lord 
Dudley), were probably the most distinguished in the 
group of new acquaintances who did their best to 
make a man whom Jeffrey called his " beloved and in- 
comparable friend," feel at home in his novel sur- 
roundino-s. 

Sydney Smith assuredly needed all the encou- 
ragement which friends old and new could give him 
just then, for he occupied a singular and by no 
means an enviable position in the ranks of his profes- 
sion. Those who were at that time at the head of 



OF THE KEV. SYDNEY SMITH. Ill 

affairs in Churcli and State, so far as they condescended 
to recognize liis existence at all, were provoked by tlie 
bold and uncompromising attitude of hostility which 
the young Edinburgh Reviewer was not afraid to assume 
towards the pubHc abuses which everywhere prevailed. 
The consciousness that justice lay at the foot of his 
quarrel with the existing order of things, did not, under 
the circumstances, do much towards disarming either 
their anger or their fear ; and Sydney Smith was quickly 
made to feel that the " universal opinion that the 
Bevieiv is uncommonly well done," retarded rather 
than promoted his advancement in the Church. It 
was accordingly not long before he realized that he 
had little to expect beyond coldness and studied 
neglect from the clerical and oJBQcial dispensers of 
patronage. Writing from London, in a somewhat 
despondent strain, a considerable time after bis arrival 
there, he states, " I have as yet found no place to 
preach in ; it is more difficult than I had imagined. 
Two or three random sermons I have discharsfed, and 
thought I perceived that the greater part of the con- 
gregation thought me mad. The clerk was as pale as 
death in helping me off with my gown, for fear I should 
bite him." " He did not, however, lose heart, and in 
the midst of his own difficulties and anxieties, he was 
always ready to cheer others both by precept and 
example. He felt certain that eventually his abilities 
would find public recognition, and he did not grudge the 
sacrifices which he had meanwhile made in the good 
cause of liberty and progress, and thus he set to all 
around him an example of manly courage and patient 

•^ " Memoir of Sydney Smith," chap. iv. p. 62. 



112 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

hope. He afterwards taught the same lesson by pre- 
cept also, and in the accompanying unpublished essay, 
which he wrote towards the close of his life, some of 
the things which he had learnt by experience are 
wittily described. The essay, like several others in 
this work, is printed from a manuscript in the posses- 
sion of Miss Holland, through whose kindness it is now 
made public. It is entitled : — 

A LITTLE MORAL ADVICE : 

A FHAGMENT ON THE CULTIVATION AND IMPROVEMENT OE 

THE Animal Spirits. 

It is surprising to see for what foolish causes men 
hang themselves. The most silly repulse, the most 
trifling ruffle of temper, or derangement of stomach, 
anything seems to justify an appeal to the razor or the 
cord. I have a contempt for persons who destroy 
themselves. Live on, and look evil in the face ; walk 
up to it, and you will find it less than you imagined, 
and often you will not find it at all ; for it will recede 
as you advance. Any fool may be a suicide. When 
you are in a melancholy fit, first suspect the body, 
appeal to rhubarb and calomel, and send for the 
apothecary ; a little bit of gristle sticking in the wrong 
place, an untimely consumption of custard, excessive 
gooseberries, often cover the mind with clouds and 
bring on the most distressing views of human life. 

I start up at two o'clock in the morning, after my 
first sleep, in an agony of terror, and feel all the weight 
of life upon my soul. It is impossible that I can bring 
up such a family of children, my sons and daughters 
will be beggars ; I shall live to see those wdiom I love 



OF THE KEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 113 

exposed to the scorn and contumely of the world ! — 
But stop, thou child of sorrow, and humble imitator 
of Job, and tell me on what you dined. Was not there 
soup and salmon, and then a plate of beef, and then 
duck, blauc-mange, cream cheese, diluted with beer, 
claret, champagne, hock, tea, coffee, and noyeau ? And 
after all this, you talk of the mind and the evils of life ! 
These kind of cases do not need meditation, but magf- 
nesia. Take short views of hfe. What am I to do in 
these times with such a family of children ? So I 
ai'gued, and lived dejected and with little hope; but 
the difficulty vanished as life went on. An uncle died, 
and left me some money ; an aunt died, and left me 
more ; my daughter married well ; I had two or three 
appointments, and before life was half over became a 
prosperous man. And so will you. Every one has 
uncles and aunts who are mortal ; friends start up 
out of the earth ; time brings a thousand chances in 
your favour ; legacies fall from the clouds. Nothing 
so absurd as to sit down and wring your hands 
because all the good which may happen to you in 
twenty years has not taken place at this precise 
moment. 

The greatest happiness which cati happen to any one 
is to cultivate a love of reading. Study is often dull 
because it is improperly managed. I make no apology 
for speaking of myself, for as I write anonymously 
nobody knows who I am, and if I did not, very few 
would be the wiser — but every man speaks more firmly 
when he speaks from his own experience. I read four 
books at a time ; some classical book perhaps on Mon- 
day, Wednesday, and Friday mornings. The " History 
of France," we will say, on the evenings of the same 

I 



114 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

days. On Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, Mosheim 
or Lardner, and in the evening of those days, Reynolds' 
Lectures, or Burns' Travels. Then I have always a 
standing book of poetry, and a novel to read when I 
am in the humour to read nothing else. Then I 
translate some French into English one day, and 
re-translate it the next ; so that I have seven or eight 
pursuits going on at the same time, and this produces 
the cheerfulness of diversity, and avoids that gloom 
which proceeds from hanging a long while over a 
single book. I do not recommend this as a receipt 
for becoming a learned man, but for becoming a 
cheerful one. 

Nothing contributes more certainly to the animal 
spirits than benevolence. Servants and common 
people are always about you ; make moderate attempts 
to please everybody, and the effort will insensibly lead 
you to a more happy state of mind. Pleasure is very 
reflective, and if ^-ou give it you will feel it. The 
pleasure you give by kindness of manner returns to 
you, and often with compound interest. The receipt 
for cheerfulness is not to have one motive only in the 
day for living, but a number of little motives ; a man 
who from the time he rises till bedtime conducts him- 
self like a gentleman, who throws some little con- 
descension into his manner to superiors, and who is 
always contriving to soften the distance between him- 
self and the poor and ignorant, is always improving 
his animal spirits, and adding to his happiness. 

I recommend lights as a great improver of 
animal spirits. How is it possible to be happy with 
two mould candles ill snuffed ? You may be virtuous, 
and wise, and good, but two candles will not do for 



OF THE KEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 115 

animal spirits. Every night the room in which I sit 
is lighted up like a town after a great naval victory, 
and in this cereous galaxy and with a blazing fire, it 
is scarcely possible to be low-spirited, a thousand 
pleasing images spring up in the mind, and I can see 
the little blue demons scampering off like parish boys 
pursued by the beadle. 



Sydney Smith was always fond of giving " a little 
moral advice" to his friends whenever opportunity 
occurred, and as a matter of fact his letters abound in 
ffenial and wise counsels for the better reo^ulation of 
existence. In an unpublished note, written from Fos- 
ton in 1819, he confides the following prescription to an 
acquaintance who had complained to him of nervous- 
ness : — " Remedtes against Nervousness. — The re- 
medies against nervousness are Resolution, Camphor, 
Cold Bathing, Exercise in the Open Air, Abstinence 
from Tea and Coffee, and from all distant views of 
human life, except when religious duties call upon you 
to take them." 

It is always difficult for a man to possess his soul 
in patience when every effort seems fruitless, and 
integrity and talent appear to count for nothing in 
the eyes of those who have the power to help. Ability, 
however, when it is linked to good sense and right 
feeling, seldom fails before long to make its merit 
known, and to win for itself recognition in some 
unlooked-for quarter. Not a few of the noblest 
ministers of the Christian Church have not been cut 
after the regulation pattern, and, as a rule, such men 
have fared more hardly in the church than in the 
world. All through the earlier years of Sydney 



116 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Smith's ministry that was precisely his position. His 
ecclesiastical superiors looked coldly upon him ; they 
were dazzled by his brilliant common sense, and 
alarmed at the freedom with which he applied it even 
to such venerable personages as themselves. He was 
regarded, in the prim and decorous circles of the day, 
as a dangerous man, and a dangerous man he certainly 
was to the end of the chapter, so far as all clerical, 
political, or social pretence and injustice were con- 
cerned. But straightforward people, high and low, 
from earls and marquesses to farm labourers and 
village children, opened their hearts to welcome a man 
who placed the precious things of his creed in circula- 
tion, not only in good words, but hkewise in the more 
tangible coin of golden deeds. 




-4^^^^' ^' 



EDINBURGH CASTLE. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY' iSMlTH. 117 



CHAPTER VI. 

1805—1807. 

Holland House — Preacher at the Foundling Hospital — Lecturer at 
the Royal Institution — " Peter Plymley " — Gift of Foston by 
Lord Erskine. 

An introduction to Holland House, which Sydney Smith 
obtained through his brother Robert, who had been an 
intimate friend from his school days at Eton of its 
genial and accomplished master, gave the ex-curate of 
Nether Avon an entrance into the most brilliant so- 
ciety in England. Henry Richard Vassal Fox, third 
Lord Holland, "nephew of Fox and friend of Grey," — as 
with mingled pride and playfulness he sometimes styled 
himself, — delighted to gather around him in his historic 
home the most distinguished men and the most beau- 
tiful women of his times. Standing in the old court 
suburb of the town, Holland House, with its charm- 
ing nooks and corners, its lovely gardens, its weird 
traditions, its famous pictures, its literary treasures, 
and its political memories, presents to a cultivated 
Englishman a galaxy of attractions, which, in their 
way, are unrivalled through the length and breadth of 
the kingdom. Here, in the stormy times which pre- 
ceded the tragic close of Charles the First's reign, the 
first Lord Holland, whom Clarendon describes as a 
" very handsome man, of a lovely and winning presence. 



118 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

and gentle conversation," kept open house for tlie 
troubled friends of the king. Here, in the reign of 
Queen Anne, Joseph Addison, having married the 
Dowager Countess of Warwick, spent — not very happily, 
it is to be feared — the closing years of his life. Here 
dwelt the " lass of Hichmond Hill," the bewitching 
Lady Sarah Lennox, whom Greorge the Third seemed 
wishful at one time to make his queen. Here, too, at a 
still later period, Charles James Fox slipped through 
a somewhat careless and rebellious youth, and duly 
emerged into the midst of those fierce political con- 
tentions which called forth all the latent powers of 
his strong but ill-disciplined manhood. The " nephew 
of Fox and friend of Grey," who dispensed with high- 
born grace the hospitalities of Holland House when 
Sydney Smith first crossed its threshold in 1805, was 
himself not unworthy, to some extent at least, of 
association with those great servants of the State. He 
inherited that peculiar personal fascination — inde- 
scribable but most subtle — which led Edmund Burke 
to exclaim that his great rival was a man made to be 
loved, and he shared, moreover, that generous hatred 
of oppression in every shape, which caused tyrants at 
home, and slave-holders abroad, to curse the name of 
Fox. Nor was Lord Holland unworthy of the confi- 
dence of Earl Grey, — the courageous and enlightened 
premier of England — who took occasion by the hand, 
and consolidated the power and broadened the liberty 
of a nation which will ever hold his name in grateful 
honour ; for the master of Holland House threw the 
whole weight of his social as well as his political in- 
fluence into the despised cause of the people and took, 
his full share of odium as a champion in high places 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 119 

of the policy of peace, retrencliment, and reform. 
Another of the great Whig leaders, Lord John Kussell, 
has happily described Lord Holland as a man who 
" won without seeming to court, instructed without 
seeming to teach, and amused without labouring to be 
witty." ' From the end of last century until the 
opening years of Queen Victoria's reign, few men in 
England of liberal proclivities, who had gained renown 
in art, literature, politics, or science, failed to make 
acquaintance with Holland House aud its genial and 
patriotic OAvner. If it can be said with any approach 
to truth that there was in England in 1806 a 
ministry composed of " All the Talents," it is equally 
correct to add that there was before that year, and 
long after it had run its course, an assemblage of all 
the talents in the cosmopolitan company which 
thronged the salons of Holland House in the days 
when the kindly hand of Vassal, Lord Holland wel- 
comed its guests. 

A list of the visitors to Holland House during this 
period would include the names of half the eminent 
men in England, from Lord Byron to Lord Macaulay, 
and would supply ample proof, if that were needed, of 
the wide sympathies as well as versatile tastes of the 
noble owner. Political leaders, such as Grey, Russell, 
Durham., and Lansdowne, met in the Gilt Room or the 
Library, with poets like Moore and Rogers, and men 
of science like Sir Humphrey Davy, Count Rumford, 
or Alexander von Humboldt, or wandering authors 
from the Great Republic like Washington Irving. The 



' Preface to vol. vi., " Life of Thomas Moore," by Lord John 
Russell. 



120 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



Prince Regent and the Duke of Clarence were not 
more at home in that brilliant crowd than Canova the 
sculptor and Wilkie the painter. Astute diplomatists 
like Prince de Talleyrand or Prince Metternich have 
probably leaned across those tables to compare notes 
with philosophic students like Bentham, Mackintosh, 
or Romilly ; nay, it is quite as likely that — for once 
off their guard — they may have thrown themselves 




HOLLAND HOUSE. 

As it appeared before alteration. From an old print. 



back in their chairs, convulsed with the humour of 
wits like Henry Luttrell or Sydney Smith. 

Lord Holland and Sydney Smith had much in 
common, and they were therefore soon drawn into 
the bonds of a friendship which survived all differences 
of opinion and habit, and which death alone was 
strong enough to break. In the judgment of his 
friend, Lord Holland's career was " one great, inces- 
sant, and unrewarded effort to resist oppression, pro- 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 121 

mote justice, and restrain the abuse of power. He 
had an invincible hatred of tyranny and oppression, 
and the most ardent love of public happiness and 
attachment to public rights."^ With Lady Holland 
also, Sydney Smith was for years on terms of 
close friendship, and many of his wittiest letters 
were addressed to her. Lady Holland was a 
beautiful, imperious, and somewhat argumentative 
woman, full of strong likes and dislikes, which she 
never concealed, and often expressed in bold and sar- 
castic terms. It is related of her, that " in the midst 
of some of Macaulay's interesting anecdotes she would 
tap on the table with her fan and say, ' Now, Macaulay, 
we have had enough of this, give us something else.' 
She would issue commands to Sydney Smith; but 
once he retorted. Said she, ' Sydney, ring the bell.' 
He answered, 'Oh, yes, and shall I sweep the 
room? ' " ^ But if Lady Holland was domineering in 
manner, and occasionally sarcastic in speech, she had 
a kind heart, and was a most loyal friend to all who 
gained her esteem, and she was a woman who was 
not offended when her attacks were met with weapons 
similar to her own. 

Li John Allen, Lord Holland's factotum, Sydney 
Smith had a friend at court at Holland House. Allen 
was so remarkable a personage, and so conspicuous 
a figure in the society of Holland House, that no 
account, however slight, of Lord Holland or his home, 
would be complete without some reference to a man 
who was at once his physician, adviser, librarian, and 

■ "Memoir of the Eev. Sydney Smith," chap, x. p. 187. 
^ " Holland House," chap. iv. p. 100. By the Princess Marie 
Liechtenstein. 



122 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

friend. John Allen was born at Colinton, near Edin- 
burgh, in 1771, the year in Avhich Sydney Smith's 
life began. His father, who was a writer to the signet 
in Edinburgh, died in embarrassed circumstances when 
Allen was a child. His piother married a tenant 
farmer named Cleghorn, who gave the boy a good 
education, and finally apprenticed him to Mr. Arnot, 
an Edinburgh surgeon, with whom another lad, who 
afterwards gained fame as Professor John Thomson, 
was also an apprentice. Whilst still a very young 
man, John Allen became a member of the College of 
Surgeons, and of several learned societies in Edinburgh, 
where he delivered lectures on Comparative Anatomy 
of so much originality and power that no less a man than 
Cuvier, greatly interested, was led to make his acquaint- 
ance. In 1802 Lord Holland was anxious to secure a 
competent physician to accompany him on a long tour 
on the continent, on which he was then about to 
set out. Lord Lauderdale recommended Dr. Allen as 
a suitable man for the post, and the young Edinburgh 
suroreon, easfer to see the world under such favourable 
auspices, gladly accepted the appointment. General 
Fox was only a child when Allen came to Holland 
House as travelling-companion and physician to his 
father, but, young as he was, he never forgot the first 
impression which the stranger made upon him. " He 
was a stout, strong man, with a very large head, a 
broad face, enormous round silver spectacles before a 
pan^ of peculiarly bright and intelligent eyes, and with 
the thickest leo:s* I ever remember. His accent 



* This agrees with Sydney Smith's criticism : " Allen's legs are 
enormous — they are clerical ! He has the creed of a philotiopher, 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 123 

Scotch ; his manner eager, but extremely good-natured; 
all this made a lasting impression on me, then a 
boy of six." Allen was absent from England with 
Lord Holland for three years, and on his return with 
the family in 1805 from Lisbon, he settled down at 
Holland House to a literary life, and soon became a 
conspicuous and attractive member of the inner circle 
there. Whilst in Spain he became intimate with Don 
Manuel Quintana and mauy other literary meu, and 
he spent much time in studying the early constitu- 
tions of the various provinces of that country. The 
result of these investigations was, that no man in 
England, at the beginning of the century, was more 
of an authority on subjects connected with the con- 
stitutional history of the Peninsula than Lord Holland's 
physician. He constantly wrote for the Edinhurgh 
Review on constitutional questions and subjects sug- 
gested by the early history of France and Spain. 
He also produced a remarkable summary of contem- 
porary European politics in the " Annual Kegister " 
of 1806, and a few years later he published a " Bio- 
graphical Sketch of Mr. Fox." His principal contri- 
bution to literature, however, Avas his " Inquiry into 
the Rise and Growth of the Royal Prerogative in 
England," a book which reveals on every page not 
only his precision and ease as a writer, but his accu- 
rate knowledge and complete mastery of a difficult 
and abstruse subject. 

Allen went abroad with Lord Holland on several 
occasions, and he never failed to return to Holland 

and the legs of a clergyman ; I never saw such legs — at least 
belonging to a layman." Published Correspondence, p. 579. 



124 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

House after these excursions ladened with intellectual 
spoil. Wherever he travelled he carried with him the 
enthusiasm of a student, and the trained eye of a 
shrewd and intelligent observer ; and the knowledge 
which he was thus continually accumulating was at 
the service of every visitor to Holland House who 
cared to talk with him in a quiet nook of the library 
or garden. In theory, John Allen was a republi- 
can ; but, though repelled, like every humane man, 
by the horrors of the French Revolution, he still 
clung to the hope that France would gradually shake 
herself free from despotism, bloodshed, and cruelty, 
and establish an honest, philanthropic, and peace- 
ful Republican Government. When Napoleon, how- 
ever, sprang to power, and founded the Empire 
by the force of the sword, Allen confessed him- 
self bitterly disappointed, and abandoned the study 
of contemporary politics with evident disgust. The 
supremacy in England of the ultra-Tories, and the 
abandonment of Liberal views by the Prince as soon 
as he became Regent, increased Allen's chagrin, and 
in despair of progress either at home or abroad, under 
such conditions, the baffled politician buried himself 
amongst his books at Holland House, and, venting 
his spleen in occasional anathemas, devoted his un- 
divided attention to the study of the early history 
of the British Constitution, and the Anglo-Saxon 
framework of our political principles and laws. 

Lord Byron declared that Allen was the best in- 
formed, and one of the ablest men he knew. Unlike 
Byron, he had little imagination, but he had a memory 
which was marvellous in its accuracy as well as its ex- 
tent, and so tenacious, moreover, that he was able, at a 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 125 

moment's notice, to give a clear and full outline of the 
contents of any book which he had read with interest. 
He was elected Warden of Dulwich Colleo^e in 1811, 
and Master in 1820. He occasionally went to reside 
there, but to all intents and purposes his only home 
was Holland House, of which he was an inmate for 
forty years, and where " Allen's Room " is still shown, 
and his memory revered. 

After Lord Holland's death in October, 1840, Dr. 
Allen had increased responsibilities thrown upon him, 
and he remained, to the close of his own life in 1843, the 
honoured friend and confidential adviser of the widowed 
mistress of Holland House. Nothins^ delisfhted him 
more than to welcome his old Edinburgh friends — 
Jeffrey, Horner, Brougham, Erskine, Brown, and 
Sydney Smith; and his presence at Holland House 
was in itself a sufficient magnet to draw them, when- 
ever opportunity offered, to the old court suburb of the 
town. Though a man of the most simple and lovable 
character, and full of kindly and generous impulses, 
John Allen often amazed strangers who met him at 
Holland House by the unmeasured violence of his 
speech whenever some such subject as the slave-trade, 
or the treatment of climbing boys, or the ambition of 
Napoleon, or the intolerance of the Tories, aroused his 
anger. Those who knew the goodness of his heart 
were accustomed to watch with amusement on these 
occasions, the consternation depicted on the face of 
some casual guest, by the gentle Allen's sudden out- 
burst of wrath and fiery indignation. 

When Sydney Smith was first ushered into the 
drawing-room of Holland House, he was diffident in 
speech and embarrassed in manners, and it needed all 



126 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Lord Holland's social tacfc to set the young clergyman 
at his ease. But if he was shy when suddenly thrown 
into the most brilliant society of his times, nothing 
ever shook the quiet dignity of his bearing, or the 
manly independence of his views ; nor did he allow any 
considerations suggested by unequal rank or compara- 
tive poverty to stand in the way of his full participation 
in the social privileges and enjoyments of the hour. 
Mr. George Ticknor relates that Sydney Smith told 
him in 1838, that he thought as a rule the influence of 
the aristocracy over men of letters was " oppressive." 
" I never failed, however," he added, " to speak my 
mind before any of them. I hardened myself early." ^ 
Into whatever company Sydney Smith was thrown, 
the force of his character immediately asserted itself, 
and, whilst genial to a degree, he never for a moment 
surrendered his independence, or was afraid to utter 
exactly what he thought. No doubt the frankness 
and sincerity which marked his intercourse with the 
aristocracy heightened its charm to men who at that 
period at least, were only too well accustomed to be 
addressed in terms of mock deference and servile 
flattery. If Sydney Smith was poor (and poor in a 
very literal sense he was during the first years of his 
residence in London), he had the manliness never to be 
ashamed to acknowledge the fact ; for one rule in his 
life to which he allowed no exception was that which 
led him never to sail under false colours. He could 
not honestly afford the price of a coach when he went 
to the receptions at that " enchanted palace," as he 
describes Holland House in one of his uupubKshed 

^ " Life, Letters, and Journal of George Ticknor," vol, ii. p. 122. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 127 

letters, and so he was content to trudge tlirough tlie 
streets often in driving rain, and to change his mud- 
stained shoes on his arrival. The servants, who appear 
at first to have regarded the advent of so indigent a 
guest as something very hke an unwarrantable intru- 
sion on themselves, if not on Lord Holland, were 
regaled with flashing pleasantries of so droll a de- 
scription that not even their official solemnity was 
proof against the unexpected strain. The only memo- 
rial of Sydney Smith at Holland House is a small 
medallion portrait by Hanning, which haugs in the 
Journal Room, and bears the date of 1808. 

Meanwhile, there was much quiet happiness in a 
certain unpretending house in Doughty Street, Russell 
Square, and though there was strict economy visible 
in all its arrangements, fine taste and loving care were 
equally conspicuous ; and if the rooms were small and 
modestly furnished, they were none the less bright and 
pleasant places. Sydney Smith kept not willingly, 
but of necessity, the plainest of tables, yet no man was 
worthy to share the hospitality of that home who felt 
inclined to grumble at its simple fare. Once a week, 
keeping up in London the old custom of his Edinburgh 
days, he gave a supper-party to his friends ; and there 
was probably more merry laughter behind the closed 
shutters of No. 8, Doughty Street, on those occasions 
than in any other house— size at discretion — in the 
whole of London. Sometimes, however, he was in- 
clined to wish either that " smiles were meat for 
children, or kisses could be bread," and it was the 
remembrance of his own early struggles which led 
him to say on one occasion, with dry humour, " The 
observances of the Church concerning feasts and fasts 



128 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

are tolerably well kept, upon the whole, since the rich 
keep the feasts and the poor the fasts ! " 

Life in London, to Sydney Smith, in spite of the 
res angusta domi which overshadowed it, was gradually 
becoming more and more attractive, for the spell of 
the great city was laying hold of his heart. His 
preaching, moreover, which had been much relished in 
Edinburgh, now began to be appreciated at something 
like its true worth in London, and the attention of even 
careless and captious hearers was arrested by the 
breadth of view, moral earnestness, and bold fresh- 
ness of expression which distinguished his pulpit 
utterances. Sydney Smith was not then, or indeed at 
any subsequent period of his life, a great preacher, and 
it is certain that if any one had been foolish enough to 
describe him as an accomplished theologian, he him- 
self would have been the first to have laughed so pre- 
posterous a notion to scorn. He was neither more 
nor less than a preacher of homely and sanctified 
common sense, and he lacked the exegetical skill and 
intuitive spiritual vision which contribute so largely to 
the best kind of pulpit power. 

It appears to have been his mission, and in 
those days it was not a common one, to reveal 
the points of contact between the principles of 
Christianity and the social and political life of the 
people. His sermons not only abound in robust 
thought frequently expressed with consummate literary 
art, but sparkle with generous sentiments, especially 
towards the suffering and the poor. He was eager to 
claim for the poorest in the community their rightful 
share in all the privileges which the march of progress 
had placed within easy reach of more favoured classes 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 129 

of society, and lie never lost an opportunity of im- 
pressing the duty of active and personal benevolence 
on those who by virtue of rank and wealth had time 
and means at their disposal. Absolutely indifferent to 
mere prudential considerations, which often weaken and 
embarrass the testimony of more timid or less con- 
scientious men, Sydney Smith spoke everywhere con- 
cerning those great moral precepts of the Gospel which 
lie at the root of all that is worthy in national, no less 
than in personal life, and he endeavoured to apply them 
in all their binding force to the hearts of those whom 
he addressed. The vigour and freshness of his sermons, 
and their liberal, outspoken, and practical tone, suggest 
the higher pulpit teaching of to-day, rather than the 
more guarded and conventional discourses of sixty or 
eighty years ago ; at the same time, it must be admitted 
that they do not possess the spiritual beauty, intense 
fervour, or deep, devotional feeling of the noblest 
sermons of the present age. 

It was whilst Sydney Smith was still only an 
occasional preacher in the churches of the metropolis, 
without recognized standing, that Sir Thomas Bernard, 
charmed and impressed with all that he had heard from 
his lips, exerted his influence successfully to obtain for 
him the post of alternate evening preacher at the 
Foundling Hospital. The records of the Institution 
show that he held this position for upwards of three 
years and a half. He was elected on the 27th of 
March, 1805, and resigned his post on the 26th of 
October, 1808, the period when he went to reside 
at Heslington, near York. The stipend attached 
to the office was the modest sum of 50/. a year, 
but m other respects the position was advanta- 

K 



130 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

geous, as the preachers at the FoundUng Hospital 
had every opportunity of becoming widely known. It 
soon became apparent in the increased attendance 
and the revived interest in the evening service, that the 
famous and noble charity was not likely to suffer in 
public esteem through the choice which the Governors 
had made in the occupant of the pulpit. In after-years, 
the then forlorn young preacher was accustomed to 
recall with lively gratitude, the second start which was 
given him in his profession, through the timely aid of 
the new friend whom he had now found in Sir Thomas 
Bernard. Nothing is known of the relations which 
existed between the two men, except the tradition of 
their genial intercourse, and unfortunately no memo- 
rials of a friendship which on both sides was warm and 
appreciative have descended to their living represen- 
tatives. There were few citizens of London at the 
dawn of the present century who equalled in pubhc 
spirit or philanthropic devotion the large-hearted and 
generous man who helped Sydney Smith at a period 
when his fight with fortune was hard. The world is 
not only indebted to its great men, but to those un- 
known people who cheered and upheld them in dark 
and adverse hours, and without whose sympathy and 
succour they never could have been what they were, 
or climbed to the position of honour and influence in 
which they stand to-day. The memory of Sir Thomas 
Bernard moreover deserves on wider grounds to be 
commemorated, not merely in the name of a famous 
London street, but also in the grateful remembrance of 
every citizen who is able to appreciate protracted, 
munificent, and self-denying labours for the public 
good. Treasurer for many years of the Foundling 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITE. 131 

Hospital, he was also one of the founders of the Royal 
Institution, and laboured likewise with unobtrusive 
zeal in establishing the City Mission, the Fever Insti- 
tution, the School for the BHnd, the Cancer Hospital, 
and kmdred beneficent associations. In him not only 
deserted babes found a protector, but poor climbing- 
boys and brovY-beaten factory children a friend and 
champion. 

Lady Holland has related, with a touch of honest 
pride, an incident which occurred during her father's 
connection with the Foundling Hospital which is too 
characteristic of the man to be passed over in silence. 
He had, it seems, resolved to preach a sermon on a 
particular Sunday which assailed in no uncertain tones 
some popular opinions which he believed to be hostile 
to the best interests of religion. Mrs. Sydney, who had 
listened to the out-spoken address elsewhere, and had 
noticed the evident sensation which it produced, dreaded 
its repetition, as she felt persuaded that it might cost her 
husband and herself the friendship of one or two people 
whom they both greatly liked. " Oh, Sydney, do change 
that sermon," exclaimed the anxious young wife ; " I 

know it will give such offence to our friends, the F s, 

should they be there this evening." " I fear it will," 
was the gallant response, " and am sorry for it ; but, 
Kate, do you think if I feel it my duty to preach such 
a sermon at all, that I can refrain from doing so from 
the fear of giving offence ? " It turned out exactly as 
Mrs. Smith had dreaded : the people alluded to were 
of course there ; they duly resented the preacher's re- 
marks as a personal reflection, if not attack, upon them- 
selves, and promptly withdrew their friendship from 
him. It is pleasant, however, to be able to add, by 



132 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

way of sequel, that years afterwards tlie grudge was 
forgotten, and the old intimacy renewed, to the mutual 
satisfaction of all concerned. 

Meanwhile, other opportunities of service in the 
Church, though still iu a somewhat irregular and sub- 
ordinate capacity, were beginning to present themselves, 
for the ability of Sydney Smith was of a kind that 
could not long be hid. He became morning preacher 
at Berkeley Chapel, John Street, Berkeley Square, 
and he continued to preach there and at Fitzroy 
Chapel ^ alternately on Sunday mornings until he 
quitted London for his Yorkshire living. Berkeley 
Chapel — in spite of its situation in Mayfair, — was 
almost deserted when Sydney Smith first appeared 
in its pulpit, but only a few Sundays had elapsed 
ere it was densely thronged week after week by 
the fashionable residents of tlie neighbourhood. 
Under ordinary circumstances, power in the pulpit 
draws people to the pews like a magnet, and ac- 
cordingly the languid and half-supercilious attention 
of a congregation which literally consisted of two or 
three was swiftly exchanged for a crowded church, and 
every manifestation of deep and reverent interest in its 
services. Nor was the preacher left, like too many of 
his order, to shoot his arrows into the air, in anxious 
io^norance of their effects, for messas^es and letters — 
some of them pathetic enough, full of gratitude for 
counsel given and stimulus received — found their way 
not unfrequently to the young clergyman in Doughty 

* Fitzroy Chapel still exists as a place of worship, though under 
a different name. In 1864 it was consecrated by the Bishop of 
London, and became St. Saviour's Church, in the parish of St. 
Pancras. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 133 

Street, as if to prove that the earnest words he uttered 
on the highest of all themes were not missing their 
appointed mark. 

Sydney Smith was indebted to Sir Thomas Bernard's 
kindly offices for another appointment which did still 
more to bring him into fame. Six months before his 
duties at the Foundling Hospital began, he was in- 
vited to deliver a course of lectures at the Royal 
Institution, of which society Sir Thomas was one 
of the early patrons and first treasurer. The Royal 
Institution — which had been founded in March, 
1799, at the house of Sir Joseph Banks, by Count 
Rumford and a small band of scientific men — was at 
that time struggling into notice, and Sir Humphrey 
Davy's lectures on the new science of chemistry were 
beginning to attract public attention to the object 
and scope of its work. Sydney Smith's subject was 
moral philosophy, and he gave his first lecture on the 
10th November, 1804. The lectures, twenty in all, were 
continued from that date until the end of May, 1805, 
and he received for the entire course the sum of 50/., 
and a complimentary life admission to the meetings of 
the Institution for himself and Mrs. Smith. Some- 
what to his own surprise, the lectures were uncommonly 
well received, and helped greatly to increase his re- 
putation. Probably the strong desire which the public 
evinced to see and hear him at the desk of the Royal 
Institution was heightened by the growmg influence of 
the Edinburgh Review, to which it was becoming known 
he was one of the chief contributors. So great indeed 
was the interest excited, that the whole of Albemarle 
Street and part of Grafton Street were blocked by 
carriages day after day during the delivery of the lee- 



134 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

tures, whilst every seat, and even the passages and 
lobbies of the building itself were closely packed by an 
eager and excited crowd. " You will be amused," 
wrote Francis Horner, " to hear the account Sydney 
gives of his own qualifications for the task, and his 
mode of manufacturing philosophy ; he will do the 
thing very cleverly, I have no doubt. He will contri- 
bute, like his other associates of the Institution, to make 
the real blue- stockings a little more disagreeable than 
ever, and sensible women a little more sensible." '^ 
Horner's expectations were not disappointed, for his 
old comrade did the thing so cleverly that the most 
competent and critical minds in the assemblage w^ere 
the first to admit the elevation of thought, originality 
of illustration, and charm of exposition which dis- 
tinguished these singularly clear and vigorous ad- 
dresses. In spite of the approbation he had thus won, 
Sydney Smith retained a very modest opinion of his own 
merits as a lecturer, and felt as if he had suddenly been 
lifted into a false position by the extravagant ap- 
preciation of his efforts by the public. In a letter to 
Jeffrey, written in the spring of 1805, he says, "My 
lectures are just now at such an absurd pitch of ce- 
lebrity, that I must lose a good deal of reputation 
before the public settles into a just equilibrium 
respecting them. I am most heartily ashamed of my 
own fame, because I am conscious I do not deserve 
it, and that the moment men of sense are provoked 
by the clamour to look into my claims, it will be at an 
end." ' 

Nearly forty years later. Dr. Whewell, convinced that 

' " Life of Horner," vol. i. p. 295. 
* Published Correspondence, p. 295. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 135 

a man of Sydney Smith's keen insiglit and superb com- 
mon sense must have said many things on " Wit and 
Humour," "Reason and Judgment," which ought not 
to be allowed to slip into oblivion by remaining the pro- 
perty of one generation alone, wrote to him on the sub- 
ject, and received the following characteristic reply : — 
" My lectures are gone to the dogs, and are utterly 
forgotten. I knew nothing of moral philosophy, but 
I was thoroughly aware that I wanted 200/. to furnish 
my house. The success, however, was prodigious ; all 
Albemarle Street blocked up with carriages, and such 
an uproar as I never remember to have been excited by 
any other literary imposture. Every week I had a 
new theory about conception and perception, and sup- 
ported it by a natural manner, a torrent of words, and 
an impudence scarcely credible in this prudent age."^ 
The introductory lectures were devoted to a bold and 
lively sketch of the history of moral philosophy, and 
in the second of them occurs the famous contrast 
which he drew between Aristotle and Bacon, whom he 
described as the two human beings who have had the 
greatest influence upon the intellect of mankind. The 
world is indebted to Bacon for an ever- widening ex- 
tension of its knowledge of the laws of Nature in the 
external universe ; and " every succeeding year is an 
additional confirmation to us that we are travelling in 
the true path of knowledge, and as each year brings in 
fresh tributes of science for the increase of human 
happiness, it extorts from us fresh tributes of praise to 
the guide and father of true philosophy." To the 
understanding of Aristotle, " equally vast and equally 

* Published Correspondence, p. 587. 



136 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

original," mankind is " indebted for fifteen hundred 
years of quibbling and ignorance, in which the earth 
fell under the tyranny of words, and philosophers 
quarrelled with one another, like drunken men in dark 
rooms. * * * Professors were multiplied without the 
world becoming wiser, and volumes of Aristotelian 
philosophy were written, which, if piled one upon 
another, would have equalled the Tower of Babel in 
height, and far exceeded it in confusion." The account 
which he gives of Aristotle himself is even more 
amusing, if not quite so audacious, as his summary of 
the philosopher's labours : " Some writers say he was 
a Jew ; others that he got all his information from a 
Jew, that he kept an apothecary's shop, and was an 
atheist; others say, on the contrary, that he did not 
keep an apothecary's shop, and that he was a Trini- 
tarian. Some say that he respected the religion of his 
country ; others that he offered sacrifices to his wife, 
and made hymns in favour of his father-in-law. Some 
are of opinion he was poisoned by the priests ; others 
are clear that he died of vexation, because he could 
not discover the causes of the ebb and flow in the 
Euripus. We now care or know so little about Aris- 
totle, that Mr. Fielding, in one of his novels, says, 
' Aristotle is not such a fool as many people believe, 
who never read a syllable of his works.' " The adroit 
manner in which the quotation from Fielding is in- 
troduced to turn the laugh from Aristotle to those 
who ignorantly ridiculed his claims, is an illustration 
of what the lecturer meant when, in another of his 
addresses at the Royal Institution, he compared true 
sarcasm to a sword-stick, which at first sight appears 
much more innocent than it really is, till suddenly 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 137 

there leaps out of it something sharp and incisive, 
which makes you recoiL 

When the lectures, or rather a portion of them, for 
some had been committed by their author to the flames, 
were pubhshed by Mrs. Smith a few years after her 
husband's death, a letter written by Lord Jeffrey ap- 
peared in the volume, which declared that in his judg- 
ment these addresses at the Royal Institution did Sydney 
Smith "as much credit as anything he ever wrote, and 
produce, on the whole, a stronger impression of the force 
and vivacity of his intellect, as w^ell as a truer and 
more engaging view of his character, than most of what 
the world has yet seen of his writings." Lord Jeffrey's 
daughter, Mrs. Empson, afterwards related, that on the 
evening prior to her father's fatal seizure he stated 
that it was his intention to write to Mrs. Sydney Smith, 
in order to beg that he might be allowed to correct his 
old friend's lectures on moral philosophy for the 
press. 

The following unpublished letter, despatched to 
Jeffrey in the summer of 1805, is interesting, as af- 
fording a glimpse of the condition of Sydney Smith's 
prospects at the time of his unlooked-for triumph at 
the Royal Institution. 



[xil] 8, Doughty Street, 4tli July, 1805. 

My deah Jeffrey, — You ask me about my pros- 
pects. I think I shall long remain as I am. I have 
no powerful friends. I belong to no party. I do not 
cant. I abuse canting everywhere. I am not con- 
ciliating, and I have not talents enough to force my 
way without these laudable and illaudable auxiliaries. 



138 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

This is as true a picture of my situation as I can give 
you. In the meantime I lead not an unhappy life, 
much otherwise, and am thankful for my share of 
good. * * * My kindest regards to all my old friends. 
Ever yours, my dear Jeffrey, 

With the truest affection, 

Sydney Smith. 

In 1806 he was urged to continue his lectures, and 
he appears to have done so with even greater success, 
for it was found necessary to erect galleries in the 
hall of the Institution to accommodate the crowds 
which flocked to hear him. Lord Houghton relates 
that, in looking back at the popularity of these lec- 
tures, Sydney Smith was accustomed to describe them 
as having^ been the " most successful swindle of the 
season." For this second course of lectures he re- 
ceived 120/., and this sum enabled him to buy new 
furniture, and to remove into a better and more con- 
venient house, No. 18, Orchard Street, Portman Square. 
He remained in this house until he quitted London, and 
it was the birthplace, in March, 1807, of his youngest 
daughter, Emily. Douglas was born in 1805, at 
Doughty Street, shortly before the family removed 
to their new home. 

The years which Sydney Smith passed in London 
were marked by great and rapid changes in public 
affairs. The winter of 1804 was full of popular un- 
rest and excitement, for England seemed threatened 
with immediate invasion. Buonaparte, who had taken 
to himself the title of the Emperor Napoleon, was 
determined to bring dowm the pride of Britain to the 
dust. " Let us be masters of the Channel for six 



OF THE EEV. SYDJ^EY SMITH. 



139 



hours," ran his boast, " and we are masters of the 
world." The autumn of 1805 witnessed a succession 
of great battles by sea and by land. In October 
the heart of England was thrilled by the victory at 
Trafalgar, whilst torn at the price at which it had 




18, Okchard Stkeet, Fortman Square, London. 



been won. In December, Napoleon avenged the defeat 
which he had suffered at our hands on the sea, by 
crushing the combined forces of Austria and Russia 
in the bloody struggle of Austerlitz. If the victory of 
her arms at Trafalgar cost England the life of Nelson, 



140 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the defeat of her rising hopes on the plain of Austerhtz 
deprived her counsels of the presence of Pitt. The 
great minister was only forty-seven, but his strength 
was visibly declining when this blow fell, to shatter his 
plans and break his heart. Austerlitz was foaght on 
the 2nd of December, and seven weeks later, on the 
2;3rd of January, 1806, Pitt breathed his last with the 
faint cry, " My country, how I leave my country ! " 
trembling on his lips. 

The state of political affairs at home and abroad 
when Pitt was called from the helm was so compli- 
cated and critical, that reasonable men of all parties 
recognized that patriotism demanded from them a 
strong and united endeavour to uphold the honour of 
England and to bring the good ship of the State safely 
through the storms which threatened to overwhelm her. 
People everywhere realized, and for the moment acted 
under the spell of that conviction, that in the councils 
of the nation, no less than in her campaigns, the order 
which Nelson signalled at Trafalgar to his fleet stood 
good in every emergency, " England expects that every 
man will do his duty." Therefore, though many 
important questions were pressing to the front for 
solution, and suffering was rife and taxation high, all 
other considerations sank into insignificance in com- 
parison with the task of checking the ravages of 
Napoleon in Europe. At the death of Pitt the tide of 
popular feeling ran strongly in favour of Fox being 
called to form the new administration, but the king's 
rooted antipathy to that bold and brilliant statesman 
rendered it doubtful whether he would tolerate a 
Cabinet in which he even found a place. At length, 
however, the famous Ministry of " all the talents " 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 141 

succeeded to power under the leadership of Lord 
G-renville. 

Fox was too great a man to sacrifice the needs 
of his country to the disappointment of the hour, 
and if he was not to have the position in the 
Cabinet to which his ability and services pointed, he 
determined to strengthen the hands of a leader who 
had refused power except on the condition that he 
shared it with him. Instead, therefore, of retiring 
gloomily to his tent in Homeric fashion, he ignored 
the conspicuous slight, and threw all his energies 
without more ado into the arduous work of the 
Foreign Office. His influence was soon felt far and 
wide, and the summer of 1806 was memorable for his 
splendid efforts to secure the abolition of the slave- 
trade, and to restore to distracted Europe the bless- 
ings of tranquillity. Had he known that his time was 
short, he could scarcely have laboured in the great 
cause of liberty and peace with more entire devotion. 
The year which opened darkly by the grave of Pitt 
was destined not to run its course ere his only rival 
was also removed from the scene of his triumphs and 
the service of his country, and for the second time in 
nine months England felt that peculiar shock of 
mingled grief and consternation which in a community 
is at once the earliest and most honest tribute to de- 
parted greatness. Fox died on the 13th of September, 
and " all the talents " which were left in the Ministry 
quickly proved themselves unequal to the struggle 
with the bigotry of the Court, backed as it was by 
the complacent ignorance which in Parliament and 
society turned a deaf ear to the petition of the 
Catholics. 



142 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

In March, 1807, the Grenville Cabinet proposed to 
admit officers of Catholic convictions -to serve in the 
army ; but this mild concession to justice and common 
sense so alarmed and irritated the king, whose worst 
fears seem to have been aroused by the wily Sidmouth, 
that he demanded an explicit pledge from his ministers 
that they would under no circumstances introduce 
measures for Catholic relief, or counsel him in any way 
upon the subject. The Cabinet had been prepared, in 
deference not merely to the prejudices of the king, but 
also of some of its own members, to drop, for a time 
at least, the obnoxious measure ; but no Ministry 
with a vestige of self-respect could possibly retain 
office on the humiliating terms thus proffered. Re- 
fusing, therefore, to subordinate the responsibihties of 
ministers to the predilections of the Crown, the Gren- 
ville Administration went out of power on the 24th of 
March, 1807, and for more than a quarter of a century 
the destinies of England and her Colonies were en- 
trusted to men of the capacity and temperament of 
Perceval, Sidmouth, Liverpool, and Castlereagh. " It 
was an awful period for those who ventured to main- 
tain Liberal opinions," said Sydney Smith, as he 
glanced back upon it in better times ; " and theye was 
no more chance of a Whig Administration than of a 
thaw in Zembla." 

Francis Horner wrote the epitaph of the Ministr}- of 
"all the talents" in a masterly pamphlet of half a 
dozen pages, entitled " A Short Account of a late 
Administration," which was published within a month 
of the downfall of Government. He contrasts the 
brevity of the career of the Grenville Cabinet with the 
greatness of its achievements at home and abroad, and 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 143 

proves beyond all question that, judged by its fruits, 
the " late Administration " was worthy of the grati- 
tude and confidence of the nation. In less than sixty 
weeks of power, substantial and permanent benefits 
had been conferred on the people. The period of 
service in the army had been shortened, and the cha- 
racter and condition of the common soldier had been 
raised ; the inducements to enter the service had been 
multiplied, and addressed to a better class of men by 
the grant of a pension for life at the end of the term 
of service. A vigorous effort had been made by nego- 
tiations with France to restore not to England alone, 
but to Europe, the blessings of peace. The dangerous 
misunderstandiugs which threatened a collision with 
America had been removed ; a system to ensure a more 
vigilant control of the public money, and to prevent 
embezzlements on the scale of former years had been 
framed ; a new plan of finance to meet the ordinary 
expenditure of the war without an immediate increase 
of taxation had been adopted. The insurrection in 
Ireland had been quelled without departure from the 
forms of justice. The Habeas Corpus Act had not 
been suspended, and recourse to martial law had been 
avoided. An Act had been passed to facilitate the 
free interchange of every species of grain between 
Great Britain and Ireland. But even this imposing 
array of legislative triumphs did not exhaust the list, 
for the Slave-Trade had been virtually abolished. Well 
might Horner exclaim, as he proudly left, almost with- 
out comment, facts like these to speak for themselves : 
" These measures were not mere expedients to get 
through a year; they were measures founded upon 
large principles, and productive of lasting and exten- 



144 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

sive effects, and they will form an era in the history 
of the country." 

One of the acts of the " late Administration " which 
Horner rejoiced at, even if he did not record it, was 
the presentation of the living of Foston, in York- 
shire, in the autumn of 1806, to the Rev. Sydney 
Smith. Foston, as a chancery living, was in the gift 
of Lord Erskine, and was one of a few pieces of 
patronage which it fell to his lot to dispense during 
his brief occupation of the woolsack. He gave pre- 
ferment to Sydney Smith at the instance of his col- 
league Lord Holland, who sat in the Cabinet as Lord 
Privy Seal. The active kindness of Lord Holland at 
this juncture was never forgotten by Sydney Smith, 
and it drew into closer friendship two men who were 
singularly adapted to help and cheer one another. The 
following letter from Lord Erskine (which has been 
preserved amongst the family papers) speaks for itself. 
It was written in response to a grateful acknowledg- 
ment by Sydney Smith of the gift of Foston. 



[xiii.] Hampstead, Oct. 6tli, 1806. 

My dear Sir, — I am favoured with your obliging 
letter, and I should be guilty of insincerity, and be 
taking a merit with you which I have no claim to, if I 
were not to say that I should have given the living to 
the nominee of Lord and Lady Holland without any 
personal consideration ; at the same time, I can add 
very truly that 1 thought myself most fortunate 
indeed, that the friend they selected was so de- 
serving, and one that I should have been happy to 
have been useful to on his own and his brother's 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 145 

account. I shall feel great pleasure in cultivating 
your kind acquaintance. 

I have the honour to be, dear Sir, 

Yours faithfully, 

Erskine. 

The living of Foston was worth bOOl. a year, and 
the knowledge that this provision was a permanent 
one, lifted a load of anxiety from the recipient's mind, 
and for tlie first time for many years he breathed, 
freely in reference to money matters. Sydney Smith 
immediately went down to Yorkshire to inspect his 
living, and Archbishop Markham gave him temporary 
exemption from residence, because of his appointment 
at the Foundling Hospital, and a clergyman from York 
was engaged to drive over and preach at Foston 
Church. " My wife and children are well, and the 
world goes prosperously with me," was the answer 
Sydney Smith gave at this time to the inquiry of a 
friend. The little household in Orchard Street was 
not long in profiting by the improved condition of the 
family excliequer, for Sydney hired a house at Sonning, 
near Reading, and established his town-bred children 
in that beautiful neighbourhood during the four sum- 
mer months of 1807. " I recollect," relates Lady 
Holland, " the first breath of air, free from carpet- 
shakings, that we had inhaled." ' Whilst at Sonning, 
Sydney Smith made the acquaintance of Sir William 
Scott, afterwards Lord Stowell, and elder brother of 
Lord Eldon. Sir William had married a Berkshire 
heiress, who had inherited the family seat near 
Reading. He at once appreciated the remarkable 
' '* Memoir of the Eev. Sydney Smith," chap. v. p. 82. 

L 



,146 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

qualities of the young clergyman who was lodging in 
the village, and told him more than once that his 
prospects in life would be vastly improved if he would 
only throw in his lot with the Tory party. 

In the autumn of this year, almost before the in- 
terest which Horner's pamphlet, in vindication of the 
Grenville Administration had found time to subside, 
the first of a series of " Letters on the Subject of the 
Catholics," addressed " to my brother Abraham, who 
•lives in the country," by Peter Plymley, startled the 
political world. The sensation created by the first 
letter was still at its height, when a second dropped, 
like a bomb-shell into the Tory ranks, and before the 
end of the year five of these bold and unlooked-for 
strictures were in circulation, and were galloping 
through the country as fast as the mail-coach could 
carry them. Five more of Peter Plymley' s letters 
were published in rapid succession in the opening 
weeks of 1808, and in a month or two the entire ten 
were issued as a bulky pamphlet. Before the close of 
the year this cheap reprint, which was sold at a 
shilling, was already in its sixteenth edition. Thirty 
years later, it is curious to relate, the " Letters of Peter 
Plymley" had become so rare that fifty times that 
sum was paid for a copy.^ 

With the collapse of " All the Talents " the hopes 
of the friends of religious toleration were wrecked, 
and the general election which followed, with its cries 
of "No Popery!" "Church and King!" and the 
" Church in danger ! " resulted in the return of a Tory 
and anti-Catholic majority. Mr. Perceval had declared 

^ " The work is now (1838) so scarce tliat we paid for our copy 
no less than 50s." Dr Maginn, Fraser's Magazine, vol. xvii. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 147 

in Parliament that further concessions to the CathoHcs 
were inconsistent with the safety of the State, and his 
nominal chief, the Duke of Portland, endorsed the 
same narrow and unjust opinions. The Portland- 
Perceval Administration was accordingly formed on 
the most rigid of Tory lines ; and with a Parliament 
which represented an absurd panic in reference to 
Napoleon and the Pope, the new ministers, with the 
support of the Court, the Church, and even of many 
of the Dissenters, inaugurated with little difficulty a 
high-handed policy of coercion and oppression. If 
religious equality was granted to the Catholics — so 
ran the stock arguments of the hour — the Church was 
imperilled ; if abuses were removed, or the laws 
amended, the constitution was menaced ; Mr. Perceval, 
indeed, might have sat for a portrait of the dog in 
the manger, so well did he play that time-honoured 
part. The Rev. Abraham Plymley was a representa- 
tive man, and faithfully reflected the opinions and 
fears of thousands of his fellow-electors in all parts of 
the kingdom. Like many other well-intentioned and 
sturdy defenders of the faith, the prejudices of 
brother Abraham had been inflamed by the assertion 
that there was a widely spread conspiracy against the 
Protestant religion, and that even if, as Peter assured 
him, writing out of the fulness of superior information 
on the subject, the Pope had " not yet landed," there 
was still too much reason to dread that he was at 
least " hovering about our coast in a fishing-smack." 
While dealing tenderly from first to last with 
Abraham's prejudices, which even in his ridicule he 
respects as the scruples of an honest but misguided 
man, he pours supreme contempt on the statesmen 



148 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

who liad led his brother astray, and demolishes with 
political irony of the most brilliant and bitter kind 
their hypocritical pretensions. The self-constituted 
bulwarks of the Reformation in the Cabinet, are casti- 
gated with sarcasm of an exceedingly scathing descrip- 
tion, and their logical overthrow is complete. Even 
though the good taste is not always conspicuous, and 
the humour is sometimes forced, and occasionally 
coarse, the " Letters of Peter Plymley," with their 
marvellous insight into men and motives ; their solid 
array of facts, which can neither be denied nor met ; 
their droll pleasantries and inimitable irony ; their en- 
lightened and generous sympathies; their unaffected 
love of liberty ; and their conspicuous common sense, 
constitute one of the most powerful and effective 
weapons which wisdom and wit have ever forged in 
their long warfare with bigotry and superstition. 
The "Letters of Peter Plymley" ran like wildfire 
through the land, edition after edition was snapped 
up, and the whole nation took sides with the Rev. 
Abraham, or his audacious and outspoken brother. 

The Grovernment were naturally greatly incensed, 
and took extraordinary pains to identify the author 
of a brochure which had exposed them to public 
ridicule, but their efforts in this direction were com- 
pletely foiled. It seems remarkable that so zealous a 
Tory, and so astute a lawyer as Lord Stowell, should 
not have suspected that the accomplished young divine 
of pronounced Liberal opinions, with whom he argued 
in the fields around Reading in the long vacation of 
the previous summer, knew more about the- subject 
than perhaps he cared to confess. No such thought, 
however, seems to have crossed Lord Stowell's mind, 



OF THE EEY. SYDNEY SMITH. 



149 



and " Peter Pljmley " was, for the time at least, as 
much of a mystery as the man in the iron mask. 
Meanwhile, it was a fortunate circumstance for the 
Rev. Sydney Smith that " All the Talents " were not 
oblivious of his own, and that he received preferment 
during the brief summer which preceded the long 
winter of popular discontent. Happily, he was Rector 
of Foston before the sharp frost of political reaction 
set in, or his budding hopes in his profession would 
have been ruthlessly nipped even without the help 
of Peter Plymley's fearless pen. 




THE FOUNDLING HOSPITAL, LONDON. 

{From an old print.) 



150 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER VII. 

1807—1814. 

Removal to Yorkshire — Life at Heslington — Builds Foston 
Rectory. 

" The sepulchral Spencer Perceval," as Peter Plymley 
described the leader of the House of Commons in the 
No Popery Parliament of 1807 was destined, all un- 
known to himself, to take a prompt revenge for the 
ridicule which that lively gentleman had heaped upon 
his betters by passing a measure which practically 
compelled the mischievous scribe to join his " brother 
Abraham in the country." No one will pretend to 
deny that the Clergy Residence Bill, which was passed 
through the exertions' of Mr. Perceval in 1808, was a 
much needed measure of reform, or that it produced 
very beneficial results in the parishes of England. At 
the same time it must be admitted that, like many 
other sudden enactments in Church and State, its pro- 
visions taxed somewhat unfairly the resources of the 
men who were the first to come under its sway. 
Sydney Smith's dilemma concerning his Yorkshire 
living supplies a case in point. Except on Sundays, 
Foston appears to have been a deserted village, so 
far as the clergy were concerned, since the reign of 
Charles II. Doubtless one pretext for such an in- 



OF THE KEY. SYDNEY SMITH. 151 

excusable state of aifairs sprang out of the fact that 
York, with a society in those days of an eminently 
clerical caste, was less than a dozen miles away ; and a 
cathedral city was a much more congenial place of 
abode to the average parson of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries than a stagnant village with no 
society worthy of the name. In the case of Foston, 
a better plea, though still an insufficient one, was the 
wretched condition of the parsonage-house, which was 
mean in all its arrangements and wholly inadequate, 
except indeed for an elderly celibate of meek disposi- 
tion and homely tastes who was content to dine with 
his cook. " A brick-floored kitchen, with a room 
above it," with a foal-yard on one side, and a church- 
yard on the other, sums up nearly all that can be said 
of an ecclesiastical residence, which Lady Holland not 
inaptly terms a " hovel." 

When Sydney Smith came down to look at the 
place, he asked the local authorities to make a 
valuation of the parsonage-house. The village car- 
penter declared it was worth 50L, but the stone- 
mason thought that estimate was rash, and some- 
what high. No wonder the rector's heart fell, for 
the prospect before him was certainly dismal enough ; 
and the gift of Foston seemed, for the moment, 
equivalent to that of a white elephant, and to bring 
his Avife and children from their comfortable home in 
London to such an abode was out of the question. 
Under the new regulations, however, there was no 
alternative, except to relinquish the living, or to build 
a house, — for permission to live at a distance, which 
Archbishop Markham had granted, was, of course, 
only a temporary solution of the difficulty. After 



152 THE LIFE AND TmES 

various fruitless efforts to excliange Foston for a 
benefice nearer town, he determined, though not with- 
out some misgivings, to accept the latter alternative, 
and the present charming rectory, of which he was 
architect as well as occupant, stands as an enduring 
monument of his skill as a builder. 

Although anxious for a country life, for the sake of 
his children, Sydney Smith was reluctant to tear him- 
self so completely away from the social attractions of the 
town, as residence in a Yorkshire village implied. The 
church at Foston was in almost as dilapidated a con- 
dition as the parsonage, and when the new clergyman 
went to inspect it he was met by the octogenarian clerk, 
a blunt son of the soil, accustomed to speak his mind 
with refreshing candour. Lady Holland has sketched 
the first interview which took place between the new 
rector and the old clerk : " He looked at my father 
from under his grey, shaggy eyebrows, and held a long 
conversation with him, in which he showed that age 
had not quenched the natural shrewdness of the 
Yorkshireman. At last, after a pause, he said, 
striking his crutch-stick on the ground, ' Muster 
Smith, it often stroikes moi moind that people as 
comes from London is such fools. But you ' (giving 
him a nudge with his stick), ' I see you are no fool ! ' " ^ 
The verdict thus pronounced by the village oracle on 
the strange parson naturally carried great weight 
with the rustics of Foston, nor did the old man's re- 
putation for wisdom suffer in after-years, in conse- 
quence of the frank avowal of his first impressions 

^ " Memoir of the Eev. Sydney Smith," chap. v. p 85. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 153 

concerning his new master. Writing from York to 
Jeffrey shortly after this amusing episode, Sydney 
Smith assures his former comrade that, whilst he 
regrets the prospect of parting with so many friends, 
he feels the change will benefit his children, and give 
him greater leisure and more peace. He rejoices, 
moreover, that in Yorkshire he will be two hundred 
miles nearer Edinburgh. 

Jeffrey, for his part, would have been thankful if 
Sydney Smith had returned to Edinburph itself when 
he was setting out once more for the north, for the 
responsibility which the conduct of the Review im- 
posed upon him at that time was almost more than he 
c»uld bear. Brougham, Horner, Allen, and Sydney 
Smith were all at a distance from Edinburgh, and 
were all immersed in their own special affairs, and 
Jeffrey despaired of any return of those " careless and 
cordial hours " which he had once spent in their com- 
pany. Sometimes, especially in his letters to Horner, 
in his despair of " copy," he breaks forth into strains 
of indignant eloquence at the base perfidy of his 
heartless colleagues. " You seem to treat me a little 
too much like a common dun, and to fancy that there 
is something very unreasonable in my proposing any- 
thing that is to give you trouble, or cost you a little 
exertion. * * * I hope you do not imagine that I have 
any interest in the publication that is essentially dif- 
ferent from yours, or Smith's, or that of any of our 
original associates. * * * When I am deserted by my 
old associates I give up the concern, and while they 
are willing to support it I shall feel myself entitled to 
pester them with the story of our perplexities, and to 



154 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

make them bear, if possible, their full share of my 
anxieties." ^ On another occasion he exclaims, with a 
sigh of relief, " This number is out, thank Heaven, 
without any assistance from Horner, Brougham, Smith, 
Brown, Allen, Thomson, or any other of those gallant 
supporters who voted their blood and treasure for its 
assistance."^ If Jeffrey dunned his colleagues, they 
were not slow to return the compliment, as the follow- 
ing very straightforward note from Sydney Smith 
sufficiently attests : — 

[xiv.] Orchard Street, Nov. 18th, 1807. 

My dear Jeffrey, — Upon the receipt of this, com- 
pute diligently what thou owest me for reviews in the 
three last numbers, and send me the money. When 
does Constable mean to raise his prices, or does he 
mean to do so at all ? T ask, because (to be honest) 
I have three motives for writing reviews. First, the 
love of you. Second, the habit of reviewing. Third, 
the love of money ; to which I may add a fourth, the 
love of punishing fraud and folly. All the money I get 
in reviewing I spend in books. Mrs. Smith and the 
children are in perfect health. 

Sydney Smith. 

The motives which " Peter Plymley " thus gives for 
his work as a reviewer, are about as reliable as the 
statement which, years afterwards, he made to a lady 
concerning what he termed his tlireefold pretensions to 
do well with the world : " First, I am fond of talking 
nonsense. Second, I am civil. Third, I am brief." ^ 

V " Life of Lord Jeffrey," vol. ii. p. 83. ^ Ibid. p. 96. 

* Published Correspondence, p. 424. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 155 

Almost the last playful passage of arms which Sydney 
Smith had with Jeffrey, ere he quitted London for 
Foston, occurs in an unpublished fragment penned in 
Orchard Street in 1808. After referring to Jeffrey's 
position in Edinburgh society and the reputation which 
the growing influence of the Review was beginning to 
give him, he adds the characteristic comment : " As 
you live on the spot, you take out the payment half in 
money, and half in homage and fraudulent smiles ! " 
It would be interesting to have heard Jeffrey's retort, 
but, alas, there lives no record of reply. 

When Sydney Smith went back to town and met his 
friends there, the prospect of being immersed in a 
village like Foston did not grow more inviting. Nothing 
would have pleased him better than to have become 
rector of Sonning or Cheam, or some country parish 
which he knew and within easy reach of the society he 
delighted in and adorned ; but a removal to an obscure 
and almost inaccessible village like Foston was a very 
different matter, and involved a complete change in the 
habits and associations of his life. Many a man, under 
such circumstances, would have thrown up his profes- 
sion in disgust, especially if he was conscious that he 
possessed gifts which episcopal hands could never im- 
part, and which were enough and more than enough to 
win him a position of, influence and emolument in the 
world, if not in the Church. But Sydney Smith had a 
deep sense of duty, and he struggled successfully to 
obey it through the whole course of a life which was 
one of more than common temptation. When the 
desolate church and ruinous parson*age-house of Foston 
presented themselves to him as the allotted scene of 
his labours, he was in the full maturity of his powers, 



156 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

and had already proved, first in the metropoHs of 
Scotland, and next in that of England, the high qua- 
lities of mind and heart which met in his strong and 
courageous nature. 

Seventy or eight}^ years ago, moreover, the difficulty 
and hazard connected with the removal of a family 
from London to York was quite equal to that which is 
experienced to-day in a voyage from Liverpool to 
Quebec. The danger, to say nothing of the discomforts, 
of the old coaching days — for which a few sentimental 
people still afiect to sigh, — were neither few nor incon- 
siderable, and, as a matter of fact, those who are old 
enough to remem.ber the practical working of the 
former system of locomotion, are usually the last to 
regret its disappearance. It is at least certain that 
the ordinary discomforts of such a mode of travelling 
(to say nothing of the delay) more than counterbalanced 
its chance delights, and as for the romance of the road, 
that, even now when distance has begun to lend en- 
chantment to the view, is not worthy to be set against 
the real and ever increasing gain of the victorious iron 
horse. 

Soon after his return from Yorkshire, he pubhshed 
two volumes of sermons, for which he received from 
Messrs. Cadell and Davies — itself a passing testimony 
to the position he had won — the sum of 200/. ; 
this amount solved for the time the vexed question 
of ways and means, and early in June, 1809, the 
dreaded removal from Orchard Street was accom- 
plished. " With heavy hearts we quitted London," 
relates Mrs. Smith In a hitherto unprinted record of 
her experience, " and never shall I forget the heart- 
sinking pain I felt on arriving on a hot June evening 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 157 

at a dirty inn in York. Within a week, Sydney hired 
a house at Heshngton, two miles from York, and from 
there he was able to serve his church twice on Sunday, 
returning to a late dinner ; the distance was about 
twelve or thirteen miles. We had bought a little 
phaeton for the journey from London, and in this 
little vehicle with one horse, Sydney drove over every 
Sunday." 

It was on the evening of Midsummer Day, 1809, that 
they arrived in York, and a fortnight later the house at 
Heslington was taken, in order to give them time to 
look round for a more convenient place of abode. 
Heslington was not on the road to Foston, and Sydney 
Smith was at least two miles further from his work in 
that village than if he had settled in York itself. But 
the house suited him, the neighbourhood was pleasant, 
and so he remained there until Foston Eectory was 
built. The house at Heslington, which thus became 
the first Yorkshire home of Sydney Smitli and his 
family, is an unpretentious, old-fashioned, red-brick 
dwelling, standing within a few yards of the wide and 
straggling village street. Heavy iron railings of a 
pattern common enough in the Georgian era, enclose a 
well-stocked shrubbery, and a short flight of broad 
steps leads up to the door. There is a spacious passage 
running through the centre of the dwelling, and 
ordinary rooms of moderate dimensions open into it on 
either side. Behind the house there is a delightful old 
garden, in whicb Sydney Smith was accustomed to 
wander to and fro. There are no memorials of the 
great wit to be seen, and indeed, whilst everybody in 
York can point out to a stranger where Lindley Murray 
once lived, few of the citizens appear to be aware that 



158 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



Sydney Smith spent tlie greater part of five eventful 
years in a house which, curiously enough, has now 
become the vicarage of the modern parish of HesUngton. 
One tradition still lingers around the house. The lofty 
bay-windows which flood the vicar's study with morning 
light are said to have been added by Sydney Smith, 
and as they correspond almost exactly to some of the 
windows which he afterwards put into his homes at 




SYDNEY SMITH S HOUSE AT HESUNGTON, NEAR YORK. 



Foston and Combe-Florey, there seems no reason to 
doubt the statement. Sydney Smith occupied this 
house until the new rectory at Foston was completed 
in the spring of 1814. 

It was at Heslington, living as he said in " great 
seclusion, happily, and comfortably," that he watched 
with secret glee the hue and cry against the Per- 
ceval Administration, which the " Letters of Peter 
Plymley " evoked through the length and breadth 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 169 

of the kingdom. It was here that he wrote some of 
the most powerful of his poKtical and social essays for 
the pages of the Edinburgh Bevieiv, And it was here 
that Dugald Stewart, Jeffrey, Sir James Mackintosh, 
Brougham, Horner, Murray, Sir Samuel Romilly, and 
other distinguished men became his willing guests. In 
a letter written to Lady Holland in the autumn of 
1809, he states that, whilst he is not leading at Hesling- 
ton precisely the life he would have chosen, he is 
resolved to like it, and to reconcile himself to it, as 
such a course he esteems more manly than to pretend 
that he is thrown away in the country, or to send up 
complaints by the post of bemg desolate, &c., <fec. 
" If it be my lot to crawl," is his sensible declaration, 
"I will crawl contentedly; if to fly, I will fly with 
alacrity; but, as long as I can avoid it, I will never be 
unhappy. If, with a pleasant wife, three children, a 
good house and farm, many books, and many friends who 
wish me well, I cannot be happy, I am a very silly, 
foolish fellow, and what becomes of me is of very 
little consequence." ^ 

Heslington is still a quiet village ; but when Sydney 
Smith took up his residence in it, there was an air 
of primitive simphcity about the place. Old Major 
Yarburgh, the lord of the manor, lived in a stately 
Elizabethan mansion in the outskirts, and seldom 
stirred far from the village street. The squire was an 
ardent lover of field-sports, and his breed of grey- 
hounds was the admiration of the whole countryside. 
Heslington was the major's little kingdom, and he 
reigned over it with autocratic but goodnatured sway. 

■* Publisiied Correspondence, p. 331. 



160 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

A squire of tlie good old sort, lie had a cheery word 
for old and young, and an unfailing supply of silver 
sixpences for the beggars who clamoured or cringed 
at his gate. His horses were even more renowned 
than his dogs, and they carried his colours to the 
winning-post in many a famous race. 

The squire at first regarded the clergyman from 
London, who had taken up his quarters in the vil- 
lage, as a questionable, if not an undesirable intruder. 
He had beard it whispered that his new neighbour 
held the most dangerous and extreme opinions on 
political and social subjects. The squire could not 
tolerate men of that description, and accordingly 
gave the stranger a stern glance and a wide berth. 
After an interval, however, finding that nothing of 
a revolutionary character had occurred to convulse 
the life of the village, the feelings of the major 
underwent a change, and one fine morning he even 
went so far as to bow to the parson. The ice once 
broken, the exchange of courtesies became the rule 
instead of the exception, and presently the squire 
arrived at such a pitch of confidence in his new friend, 
that he hurried him off one day in a transport of 
enthusiasm to see his dogs. From that day forward 
their intercourse was cordial and unembarrassed, and 
the two men understood each other completely. 

The old squire was not the only friend whom 
Sydney Smith made at this period, for other and more 
distinguished men began at Heslington to cultivate 
his acquaintance. His intimacy with Earl Grey dates 
from a flying visit which he paid to Howick in the 
autumn of 1809, and for many years he made an 
annual visit there on his way from Yorkshire to Edin- 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 161 

b argil. The close friendship which existed between 
Lord and Lady Grey and Sydney Smith continued 
without any interruption till the last, and was a source 
of constant pleasure to all concerned. The present Earl 
Grey states that he can still recall the great pleasure 
which, when he was a boy, the visits of Sydney Smith 
gave to his father and the whole circle at Howick, 
and adds that he was most kind to every member of 
the family, and delighted to amuse the young people 
around him in his own inimitable way. Lady Georgina 
Grey also " well remembers how much we all loved, 
admired, and respected him." The home life of the 
great Whig statesman, whose name is indissolubly 
linked with the Reform Bill of 1832, was simple, 
bright, and unassuming, and all who stayed at 
Howick quitted its hospitable walls with sincere 
regret, and with a heightened respect for its master. 
Sir James Mackintosh — a mutual friend of Lord 
Grey and Sydney Smith — after spending a few days 
on one occasion there as the guest of Lord and 
Lady Grey, jotted down in his diary a note to the 
effect that he had passed that week in the best ordered 
family, and amongst some of the purest people he had 
ever seen.*' It is certain that some of the happiest 
hours in the life of Sydney Smith were spent at Howick 
and Portman Square in frank and cordial intercourse 
with Lord Grey and his family, and some of the most 
sprightly epistles he ever wrote were dashed off in the 
freedom of perfect confidence to Lady Grey. In one 
of the earliest of these letters he gives an amusing 
account of his fellow-passengers in the coach, and 

^ " Life of Sir James Mackintosh," vol. ii. chap. iv. p. 259. 

M 



162 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

their outspoken but friendly criticism of the character 
and means of his noble host at Howick. On reaching 
Heslington, he states that he found everybody very 
well at home, and various schemes laid, which he duly 
intends to aid and abet, for keeping Christmas, 1810, 
in joyous and worthy fashion. 

He did not, however, always find everybody very 
well at home on his return from his northern visits, or 
his annual trip to town. Sometimes he is compelled 
to confess that he discovered on these occasions " some 
illness and much despondency, of which, if my absence 
was not the cause, my return has been the cure." 
Many a man who has shone before the world as a 
social wit, has been gloomy and morose at home ; but 
there was no spot on earth where Sydney Smith was 
more gay or welcome than at his own fireside. He 
was not only the friend, but the playfellow of his 
children, and nothing delighted him more than a merry 
romp through the house with his little ones laughing 
and shouting at his heels. He encouraged his children 
to talk freely to him, and to make him a confidant in 
their little schemes ; and he was accustomed to listen 
with the gi^eatest patience and good-humour to any 
question which was not wholly thoughtless. 

At the same time, mere idle and foolish questions, 
which they could have answered for themselves by a 
moment's reflection, were not received with the same 
complaisance. However busy he might be, he could 
always find time to smooth difficulties out of the way 
of a puzzled child, and by every means in his power 
he sought to quicken and enrich their opening minds. 
Neither conversation nor music needed to be hushed 
when he sat down to his desk, and his pen moved as 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 163 

swiftly in the midst of a liappy family group as the 
tongues of his children. Both at Heslington and 
Foston the children's hour, on all ordinary occasions, 
was duly observed, and was looked forward to by them 
and remembered in after-years with unmixed pleasure. 
In an evening, he would sit in the twilight with his 
children on his knees or at his feet, and thrill them 
with the sorrowful or laughable adventures, as the 
case might be, of old world heroes and their lady-loves. 
With the magical Avand of imagination he was able at 
will to conjure up before the delighted minds of his 
children the brave little men and bright little women 
who frolic to their hearts' content in the shadowy 
glades of Fairyland. No wonder Saba, when a child 
of eight, should have exclaimed one day when the 
house was quiet and her mother seemed depressed, 
"Why, mamma, I'll tell you what the matter is : you 
are so melancholy and dull because papa is away ; he 
is so merry that he makes us all gay. A family 
doesn't prosper, I see, without a papa." '' 

Sydney Smith's good- will to children went far 
beyond the limits of his own household. It mattered 
not where he was — in the cottages and lanes of Foston 
or Combe-Florey, or the picture-gallery at Castle 
Howard, or the library at Bowood, he always noticed 
the children, and gave them a pleasant smile and a 
kind word. Towards the close of his life, as he one 
day watched from a rustic seat his daughter's little 
ones scampering round the garden in the morning 
sunshine, wild with glee, his words were, "Attend to 

' Letter of Mrs. Smith to Francis Jeffrey, Esq., Heslington, 
1810. " Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith," p. 330. 



164 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the happiness of children. 'Mankind are always happier 
for having been happy, and a happy childhood is the 
last remembrance which clino-s to us in old age. I 
have always regretted that I had no such recollec- 
tions." ^ " You have no idea," said he on another 
occasion, " of the value of kindness. Pleasure is 
very reflective, and if you give it you will feel it, and 
pleasure which you give by a little kindness of 
manner returns to you with compound interest." 

Dr. Vernon Harcourt — who succeeded Dr. Mark- 
ham, and was the last of the Prince Archbishops of 
York — soon discovered the rare qualities of the man 
upon whom Lord Erskine had conferred the obscure 
living of Foston. Probably the Archbishop of York 
felt, like the squire of Heslington, a little shy of his 
new neighbour, but it was not long before that shrewd 
and vivacious prelate recognized the worth as well as 
the wit of the genial clergyman who had been placed 
through the influence of Lord Holland under his crosier. 
Dr. Harcourt was a man who could appreciate at 
something like their true value the peculiar talents 
of Sydney Smith ; and the unconventional freshness 
of his conversation, as well as the extent and variety 
of his information on all the questions of the day, 
called forth his admiration, and secured his friendship. 

Sydney Smith on his visits to Bishopthorpe fre- 
quently acted as croupier at the archbishop's table, 
and several amusing anecdotes used to be told of his 

* One immediately recalls the case of a brilliant leader of society, 
Harriet, Lady Asbburton, the friend of Sydney Smith, Thomas 
Carlyle, and a host of other distinguished men. " She often 
alluded," relates Lord Houghton, "to the hard repression of her 
childhood, and its effects : ' I was constantly punished for my 
impertinence, and you see the result.' " " Monographs : Literary 
and Social," p 227. 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 165 

conduct in that capacity. Dr. Harcourt had a rooted 
aversion to bores of every description, but lie particu- 
larly dreaded the attentions of scientific and erudite 
guests, as he had discovered, through many a doleful 
experience in the past, that they were addicted to long- 
winded and tediously minute explanations. One day 
an entomologist, full of enthusiasm for his hobby, and 
eager to impart what he knew of insect ways to his 
reluctant host, sat at the right of the archbishop. A 
momentary lull in the conversation, which up to this 
point had been general, gave the admirer of beetles his 
coveted chance, and straightway he plunged into the 
midst of his subject, until the goodnatured prelate, 
who cared for none of these things, was rendered 
supremely miserable by a complicated and confused 
account of a department of knowledge with which he 
had never intermeddled. The archbishop frankly 
avowed his iguorance, and did so in such significant 
terms, that his indifference likewise stood confessed. 
The student of things which creep, was either blind or 
remorseless, and accordingly pursued his way through 
larvce, antennce, and the like, with dangerous animation. 
The master of the banquet tried to turn a deaf ear 
to the maddening persistency of his misguided visitor, 
who told a tale as interminable, but not as interesting, 
as that with which the " Ancient Mariner " detained 
the wedding guest, whilst the host sat at the head 
of his table like a picture of injured innocence. At 
tlie other end, Sydney Smith, a delighted spectator 
of the scene, awaited his opportunity to rescue the 
disconsolate prelate from his embarrassing dilemma. 
By-and-by he heard the man of science declare that 
the eye of a fly was larger in proportion to its body 
than that of any other creature. At once, in tones 



166 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

of lofty authority, not nnmingled with contempt, the 
croupier struck in and met the statement with a flat 
denial. Indignant at such a contradiction on ground 
of which he felt sure, the entomologist proudly fell 
back on facts, and demanded visual proof. The whole 
company was now on the alert, and began to settle 
down to the expected controversy. With much de- 
liberation and precision, Sydney proceeded to call 
attention to the great sources of all truth, and argued 
that it must be admitted that the common judgment 
and knowledge of mankind lay treasured in the bardic 
measures and nursery rhymes of antiquity. "What 
then, how does all this bear upon the present case ? " 
demanded the naturalist somewhat stiffly. In over- 
whelming recitative came the familiar words, " I, said 
the fly, with my liWe eye, I saw him die ! " The 
reductio ad ahsiirdum was complete, and Archbishop 
Harcourt was free. 

At another banquet at Bishopthorpe, a reverend 
and learned antiquary led the conversation into dry and 
dusty by-paths, untrodden by the feet of ordinary mor- 
tals, and, lost in the mazes of the mind, and blind to all 
hints, persisted in wandering deeper and deeper into the 
intricacies of obsolete periods and problems. The arch- 
bishop darted a glance, in which entreaty struggled with 
despair, at Sydney Smith, and sank back wearied in 
his chair. Presently, in a confidential but clear under- 
tone, loud enough to be distinctly heard by all at 
table, Sydney thus addressed an immediate neighbour, 
" How he is annoying the worthy archbishop ! It is 
easy to see where he is ; as usual, he is in the Persian 
War : yes — now he is at Darius Hystaspes. Ah ! he 
has presumed too much ; his grace is w^aking up. 
" Darius Hystaspes ? I never heard of that horse beforCo 



OF THE REV, SYDNEY SMITH. 167 

What is his pedigree, sire and dam?" It is needless 
to say that the pedantic bore was silenced, and rational 
table-talk resumed its sparkling and easy sway. 

If Sydney Smith addressed his immediate neighbour 
on that occasion, it was not his usual custom to do so, 
at least at large dinner-parties. He, of course, talked 
a little with the people at his side, but he usually en- 
deavoured at the outset to place the conversation on a 
wider basis, so as to elicit the powers and secure the 
interest of every member of the company. He accor- 
dingly, as a rule, talked across the table, and if the 
person opposite proved too sheepish or stupid to 
respond, some one a little lower down was certain to 
return his balls. Ho was not only a superb talker, 
but an attentive listener, and in this respect his 
bearing in general society contrasts favourably with 
that of many less brilliant men. He believed that 
brevity was the soul of wit, and a piece of advice which 
he was fond of giving was, " Take as many half-minutes 
as you can get, but never talk more than half a 
minute without pausing and giving others an oppor- 
tunity to strike in." One thing he disliked exceed- 
ingly, and that was the half-whispered tones in which 
so many people speak at feasts as well as at funerals, 
and he declared that so far as his observation went, 
most London dinners evaporated in whispers to one's 
immediate neighbours. 

The early years which Sydney Smith spent in York- 
shire formed a somewhat restless and anxious period 
in his career, for whilst he diligently attended to his 
duties at Foston, he was still far from reconciled to the 
prospect of being immured indefinitely in that obscure 
and sleepy village. As late as the beginning of 1812, 
he appears to have cherished the hope of exchanging 



168 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

liis living for one nearer London, but as the year men- 
tioned passed with no likelihood of that hope being 
reahzed, he finally abandoned it, and set himself 
seriously to consider how best he could provide a 
suitable home for his family at Foston. 

When once this decision was taken, life at Hesling- 
ton became more pleasant, and the last two years of his 
stay there glided swiftly away amid literary and parish 
wx)rk, occasional visits to town, and more frequent 
visitors from it, the superintendence of Douglas' edu- 
cation, and the cultivation of the farm and erection of 
the parsonage-house at Foston. In September, 1813, 
his second son was born at Heslington, and he wrote 
with sly humour to one of his friends to say that he 
meant to call the new arrival Grafton, and to train 
him up as a Methodist and Tory. The child received 
a very different name, however, for he was called 
Windham, after the great statesman whom England 
had just lost, and whom Dr. Johnson regarded as the 
model of a true English gentleman. Three months 
before the birth of his son, Sydney commenced to 
build his house, and he describes himself as having 
spent the autumn of that year " trowel in hand." 

The following account of the building of Foston 
Rectory was written in her old age by Mrs. Sydney 
Smith for the information of her grandchildren. Some 
portions of this statement have been reproduced in the 
narrative of Lady Holland, but the greater part (which 
is now printed by the kind permission of Miss Holland) 
has hitherto remained in the manuscript pages of a 
family record : — 

Mrs. Sydney Smith's Account op the Building 
OF Foston Rectory. 

Sydney sent for an architect, told him the sort of 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 169 

house lie wanted, and begged for plan and estimate. 
It was three thousand pounds. We both knew what 
we wanted, and the number and size of the rooms 
which we wished to have. " Cannot you take your 
rule and compass, and so arrange these by a scale that 
we can do without this great man ? " said Sydney. This 
I did. We sat in judgment over our plan, hired an 
excellent carpenter and mason, and our house was 
begun : when finished we had not made one mistake. 
On the glebe was some fine clay. A skilful bricklayer 
from Leeds was sent for to pass sentence upon it. It 
was declared to be of the best quality. Large heaps 
were dug up to be tempered by the winter's frost. A 
hundred and fifty thousand bricks were burnt : they 
were not worth a rush ! The old parsonage just made 
the foundation of the new house. Grandfather bought 
four oxen to carry the bricks — Tug, Lug, Hawl, and 
Crawl ; he was soon tired of these slow, unexcitable 
animals. The roads were utterly neglected. There was 
a mile of very deep sand close to the village. These 
heavy beasts. Tug and company, little relished this at 
the end of their journey with the bricks. Their remedy 
was to lie down and roar ! Grandfather said he found 
them too expensive ; they required ' a bucketful of sal 
volatile ' daily. He gave up his oxen to a farmer for 
fattening, and set up a more manageable team — of 
horses. 

All seemed to be prospering. The first stone of the 
parsonage was laid in June, 1813. Windham was born 
in the following September. A tremendous winter 
and long-continued frost for eight weeks stopped all the 
work both within and without the house. Our hired 
house at Heslington was let at the coming Lady Day, 
March 25th, 1814, and our furniture, of course, was 



170 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

to be removed. The never-ending frost was a serious 
affair, but there was no help. In its half-finished state 
we were obliged to flit, and such a flitting it was ! The 
bedding — the last thing left at Heslington (with two 
or three chairs and a table) — we slept upon on the 
ground the last night, for the bedsteads had been 
carried off the day before to Foston. All up at five — 
a cold March morning — to liberate the bedding, which 
was to be removed to Foston for the next nicyht. A 
close carriage was hired to convey me and Windham 
(now six months old, but never before out of the house 
in which he was born), and the three other children, 
with Annie Kaye. Some waggons had gone early, 
others followed us. 

We set out after the children's dinner at one 
o'clock. Windham slept soundly till we were half-way 
up the sandy road (the scene of Tug's afflictions), 
when he set up an awful noise. We had made our 
way about half-way up to the house, when it seemed 
very likely that we should get no further. The field 
— there was at that time no road up to tlie parsonage, 
or only a rough one — had been so much cut up by con- 
stant carting that the carriage stuck fast. I got out 
with the baby in my arms, but soon lost my shoe in 
the stiff clay, and so walked on without. There were 
no doors to the drawing-room, but I remember, in spite 
of it all, there was a very merry tea-making upon 
some of the boxes "piled up in the drawing-room. 



It is not difficult to picture the scene. The toils 
•and adventures of the day over, and thick gloom 
closing rapidly in upon the cold March afternoon. 
Outside, the shouting of the waggoners, and the 
neighing of the horses. Within, the unexplored won- 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



171 



ders of the strange house, and the hurrying servants 
flitting to and fro through the dimlj-lighted corridors. 
The blazing fire in the drawing-room casting a ruddy 
glow on the tear-stained faces of the tired but excited 
children, and sending dark shadows to dance fitfully 
against the vacant walls. The kind mother busily 
preparing a hasty meal for the hungry young travellers, 
while her husband arranges boxes and bedding for 
its luxurious enjoyment, laughing gleefully meanwhile 
over the episode of the lost shoe, and mischievously 
pretending to be grateful for his wife's escape from 
imaginary pitfalls of a more alarming kind. Thus, 
amid homely domestic cares and happy household 
mirth, the eventful Lady Day of 1814 drew near to 
its welcome close; yet it did not vanish into the past 
until it had ushered in an altered phase in Sydney 
Smith's experience of life. 




TORCH or rOSTON CHURCH. 



172 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER VIIL 

1814—1817. 

Life at Foston — The Church, the Rectory, and the People — Kindness 
to the poor as " village Parson and Doctor " — Fondness for 
children — Popularity with servants. 

Many of the best years of Sydney Smith's hfe were 
spent in the village of Foston. When he took posses- 
sion of his new rectory, he was forty-two years of 
age, and he was fifty-seven when he exchanged Foston 
for Combe-Florey. In one respect at least, the four- 
teen years which cover his experiences in Yorkshire 
were uneventful, for neither birth nor death occurred 
under his roof during that period. Windham, the 
youngest member of the family, was a babe of six 
months when Foston Rectory became his home, and 
the first break in the circle — the death of Douglas 
— did not take place until the happy and tranquil 
Yorkshire days were recalled as a sunny memory over 
the fireside at Combe-Florey. 

The new house was a great success, in spite of the 
dismal predictions which some of his London friends 
made to the architect, that he would lose his own 
health in it, or rain that of his children. A month 
after he entered it, he was able to tell Allen, who had 
sent him a letter of medical advice on the subject of 
damp walls, " I am very much pleased with my house. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 173 

I aimed at making a snug parsonage, and I think I have 
succeeded." ^ No one who has actually visited Foston 
Rectory will be inclined to quarrel with that statement, 
for the house, though plainly built and simple in style, 
is the perfection of comfort. It has been the fashion 
to commiserate Sydney Smith over his life at Foston, 
and probably the habit has grown around a too literal 
interpretation of his own language concerning it ; 
most people, however, who know that charming spot 
are more inclined to envy than to pity him. No doubt 
before the roads were properly made, or the rectory 
built, life in such a village, especially to a man accus- 
tomed to move in the best London society, would 
naturally appear somewhat uninviting ; but when these 
difficulties were vanquished, and the preacher at the 
Foundling Hospital himself grew bucolic in his tastes, 
the aspect of affairs must soon have assumed a more 
attractive shape. The roads in the neighbourhood 
were little better than bridle-paths, and between the 
deep mud of winter and the dangerous ruts of summer, 
locomotion was usually irksome, and often perilous. 

Castle Howard is in the immediate neighbourhood, 
and the Earl and Countess of Carlisle were amongst 
the first to welcome Sydney Smith to Foston.^ Their 
first visit to the rectory was accomplished under rather 
awkward conditions, for their coach and four stuck 
fast in the mud which had tried so sorely the mettle of 
Sydney's unfortunate oxen twelve months ago. The 
eldest son of the Earl of Carlisle, Lord Morpeth, had 
been a companion of Bobus Smith at Eton, and 

' Published Correspondence, p. 360. 

- The fifth earl ; the friend of Charles James Fox and George 
Selwyn, and the kinsman and guardian of Lord Byron. 



174 THE LIFE AKD TIMES 

through Lord Grey and other mutual friends, the 
doors of Castle Howard were thrown open to Sydney 
Smith. The intimacy which thus began, continued — 
like almost every friendship Sydney Smith made — 
until it was broken by death. What Holland House 
and been to him in his early struggles in London, 
Castle Howard became when the scene was shifted to 
Yorkshire; and though he was never as closely 
associated with Lord and Lady Carlisle as with Lord 
and Lady Holland, he experienced from them almost 
equal kindness, and regarded them as a man regards 
friends whose loyalty has been proved in time of need. 
The knowledge that a welcome always awaited him at 
Castle Howard, took the sting out of his comparative 
isolation at Foston, whilst access to cultivated society, 
and to an extensive library which was thus placed 
within his reach, swept away half the disadvantages 
of a country life before the age of steam. At a sharp 
turn in the road between Foston and Castle Howard, 
the palatial seat of the Earls of Carlisle comes suddenly 
into sight ; the view from this point is magnificent, 
and Sydney Smith accordingly named the spot. Excla- 
mation Corner. " You have no idea," he was accus- 
tomed to say to his noble friends, " how splendidly lugu- 
brious Castle Howard appears when you are all away." 
Other friends, from far and near, gradually found 
their way to the rectory, but those who came from a 
distance sometimes completely missed the route, partly 
through the insignificance of the village, and partly 
through the atrocious condition of the roads by Avhich 
it was approached. In order that the exact locality 
of Foston might be better understood by prospective 
travellers, some of whom appear to have imagined 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 175 

that it was situated in barbarian fastnesses, he had 
bills (foolscap size) printed in bold type containing 
directions as to the roads, and stating the distances 
in the following fashion : York is ten miles from 
Foston Eectory. Malton is eight miles from Foston 
Rectory. Castle Howard is four miles from Foston 
Rectory," &c. After these directions were circulated, 
the " Rector's Head," as he sometimes styled bis 
house, became well known, and people no longer 
missed their way to its hospitable shelter. The roads 
in the district, moreover, by his exertions, were in 
course of time much improved, and another difficulty 
was thus greatly lessened. 

A visitor to Foston in these days knows nothing, of 
course, of such obstacles, for, taking a seat at York in 
the Malton train, he alights at the wayside station 
of Flaxton, and is at once directed to the rectory, 
which is some two miles away. The traveller in 
the Scarborough express, who seats himself with his 
back to the engine in the right-hand corner of the 
carriage, will catch a passing glimpse of Sydney's 
Smith's parsonage, with its bay windows and red-tiled 
roof, standing amongst the trees, at a distance of 
three or four fields, when the train is running between 
Kirkham Abbey and Flaxton. The nearest way for 
a stranger from Flaxton station to Foston, is through 
the fields ; a winding path, which it is impossible to 
miss, will lead him for a mile throug^h undulatinof 
meadows, until, leaving Foston Hall to the left, he 
strikes the main road again, and finds himself close 
to the church, which is within two minutes' walk of 
the gate through which he has just passed, and stands 
on rising ground to the right of the turnpike road. 



176 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Foston Church is one of the oldest ecclesiastical 
buildings in the north of England, and though a plain 
and unpretending structure, it presents several points 
of considerable interest. The present rector of the 
parish (the Rev. Francis Simpson, M.A.), after long- 
continued research, states that he is unable to give any 
reliable information as to the date of erection, but a 
close investigation shows that every portion of the 
building bears marks of great antiquity. The chancel 
arch and that over the porch are both remarkable 
features in the building; the latter is singularly 
curious, a Norman arch, with Scripture subjects carved 
on each stone. Some of these representations have 
crumbled away through age, but on one stone David 
playing on the harp, and on another Abraham offering 
up Isaac, can still be distinctly traced ; whilst on the 
keystone of the arch, a carving of the Last Supper is 
visible. 

The building is exceedingly small, and the interior 
is disfigured by a narrow gallery which runs across the 
end and up one side of the church. In this gallery, 
the village children, have from time immemorial been 
seated at morning service on Sundays; and there is 
an old man still in attendance at the church, who sat 
there regularly sixty years ago, when Sydney Smith 
was rector. He states that Mr. Smith, when he was 
preaching, kept a sharp eye on the more restless of 
the lads, and sometimes gave them a significant shake 
of the head in the course of his sermon, which they 
knew to mean — " You must give an account of your- 
self at the close of the service." Along the front of 
the gallery there is a row of unsightly wooden pegs, 
upon which the people in the pews below were accus- 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



177 



tomed to hang their hats and coats. Under the gallery, 
at the far end of the building is a heating apparatus, 
and the flue-pipe connected with it is carried outside 
through an aperture made for that purpose in the 
west window of the church. 




INTERIOR OF FOSTON CHURCH. 



The pulpit is stuck up in a corner opposite the 
side gallery ; below the pulpit is a reading-desk, and 
above it a laro-e soundino;-board is fixed to the ceil- 
ing. The pulpit hangings are faded and worn, and 
the whole church looks desolate and neglected ; 

N 



178 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

it will seat, including tlie gallery, from one hundred and 
fifty to one hundred and seventy people. Perhaps a 
better idea of the smallness of the place in which Sydney 
Smith preached for twenty years may be gathered when 
it is stated that between the door (which is near the 
end gallery) and the front of the pulpit, there are only 
four pews. There is neither stained window nor me- 
morial tablet to the memory of Sydney Smith, and so far 
indeed as Foston Church is concerned, there is not a 
line to show that he ever entered its pulpit. On the 
28th of May, 1883, when the writer wandered amongst 
its tombs, the burying-ground around the church was 
equally forlorn, whilst that portion of it which lies at the 
back of the buildiug was little better than a bed of 
nettles. It is to be hoped — for the credit of the whole 
diocese of York — that this state of affairs will not be 
allowed to continue much longer. Local munificence 
may perhaps be inadequate to the task of restoring this 
venerable church, but the sentiment of the nation, if 
rightly invited, may be trusted to respond to an appeal 
on behalf of a building as closely associated as Foston 
Church with the life and labours of a clergyman of 
the Establishment who proved himself by voice and 
pen the powerful friend and helper of the entire 
English people. 

There are two or three cottages in the neighbourhood 
of the church, and a few more are scattered by the 
roadside a little further on, but there is no village of 
Foston in the ordinary sense of the word. A mile 
beyond the church, a small school-house stands on the 
opposite side of the road, and just behind the school- 
house is the gate to Foston Rectory. A well-kept 
drive, winding through park-like grounds, leads up to 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



179 



the house ; half- way between the turnpike road and 
the parsonage a second gate is passed, which bears the 
curious name of the " Screeching Gate." Sydney 
Smith, it need scarcely be said, gave it that name, and 
it received it not on account of any infirmity of its own, 
but because of an infirmity apparent in his wife and 
daughters. The master of the house had learnt by 
experience that on Sundays, when on his way with his 




rOSTON RECTORY. 

(Built by Sydney Smith in 1814.) 

family to church, one or other of the ladies was certain 
to cry out at this stage of the journey that she had 
forofotten this or that, and to run back in sudden haste 
to the house to secure it, and so the " Screeching Gate " 
received its name. There is not much, either in the 
house or around it, to call for special remark. The 
flower-beds are tastefully laid out, and fringed with 
woodland trees ; and behind the house is a well- 



180 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

stocked kitclien-garden and orchard. An extensive 
range of barns, farm-buildings, and stables adjoins the 
back premises, but is partially hidden by a belt of 
trees. 

The house has not been altered to any material extent 
since Sydney Smith built it, and the picture on the pre- 
ceding page — which was drawn a few months ago on 
the spot — is a correct representation of its present 
appearance. In the bay on the ground floor is the 
drawing-room, and above it Sydney Smith's, bed-room. 
The dining-room, which is bright and spacious, is on 
the same side of the house as the conservatory ; the 
open window to the left of the bay is Sydney Smith's 
study, justice-room, and surgery. The principal rooms, 
both upstairs and down, are shut off from the rest of 
the house. York is about eight miles from the rectory 
as the crow flies, and from the drawing-room window 
on a fine day the majestic towers of the Minster can be 
distinctly seen through a break in the trees. " I like 
my new house very much," wrote Sydney in a letter 
to Jeffrey in the autumn of 1814 ; "it is very com- 
fortable. I would not pay sixpence to alter it; but 
the expense of it will keep me a close prisoner here for 
life."^ 

A few steps beyond the gates of Foston Rectory the 
pretty village of Thornton-le-Clay — consisting of some 
ihirty or forty houses — straggles up the hilly turnpike 
road ; and most of the people who attend Foston 
•Church live in Thornton. In the distance, on the crest 
of a wooded hill to the right, stands the stately column 
erected in the grounds of Castle Howard to the memory 
of the famous Lord Carlisle. 

^ Publisbed Correspondence, p. 362. 



OF THE KEV. STFjNEY SMITH. 181 

Seventy years have rolled away since Sydney Smith 
built Foston Rectory, and more than half a century 
ago he ceased to call it his home. There are, accord- 
ingly, exceedingly few persons now living who remember 
the place in his days, and probably only two or three 
who experienced his hospitality there. One of the last 
of his Yorkshire friends has recently departed this life 
in the person of Mr. Egerton Vernon Harcourt, a 
Deputy-Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace of the 
East Riding. Mr. Harcourt (who died on the 19th of 
October, 1883) was a son of Dr. Edward Vernon 
Harcourt, formerly Archbishop of York, and was uncle 
to the present Home Secretary, Sir Wm. Vernon 
Harcourt, M.P. A few months before his death, Mr. 
Harcourt — at the instance of Lady Elizabeth Grey — 
penned the following account of visits paid in his youth 
to Foston, and placed it at the disposal of the writer. 

Recollections of Sydney Smith at Foston. 

Whitwell Hall, York, July 2nd, 1883. 
The Rev. Sydney Smith was very intimate with 
my father", the Archbishop of York, and his family, 
and used frequently to visit at Bishopthorpe. When, 
by gift of the Lord Chancellor, he took possession of 
the living of Foston, there was no house for the 
clergyman, and the Sunday duty had been done by a 
former incumbent from York, which was ten miles 
distant; but after consulting my father, he determined 
on residing in his parish, and so built himself a good 
plain brick house in an open field adjoining Thornton, 
the principal village in his parish, though at the 
distance of a mile from the church. In this house, 



182 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

both when a boy at Westminster School (to which liis 
eldest son went), and afterwards when 1 was a student 
of Christ Church, Oxford, I was frequently invited to 
visit him ; and most pleasant visits they were, not 
only on account of the amusement afforded by his 
exuberant flow of wit, but also from his conversation 
in graver hours being full of sound sense and ability. 
Besides which his two daughters made the evenings 
pass very agreeably by their singing, in which he 
sometimes took a part. 

I never passed a Sunday in his house, but he seemed 
to be always attentive to his parishioners, and he 
had a dispensary at home, to which they resorted for 
his medical aid, wdiich he was quite competent and 
desirous to give. Considering Sydney Smith's pre- 
vious habits of literary intercourse with distinguished 
men in Edinburgh, I used to wonder at his living 
so contentedly in his very quiet rural nest. In those 
days the services of clergy were frequently put in 
requisition for acting as magistrates, and he took a 
useful part on the neighbouring bench of petty 
sessions. His well-known affability and kindness 
made him popular among the poor as well as the 
rich. 

E. Y. Harcoukt. 

Mr. Harcourt mentions Sydney Smith's medical 
attentions to his parishioners, and his services in tbe 
locality as a county magistrate. Reference has already 
been made to the " study " at Foston Rectory, and 
that room is associated not only with the composition 
of sermons, but with the examination of patients and 
prisoners. Physic and justice were ahke dispensed 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 183 

in a room which was known to some as the " surgery," 
to others as the "justice-room," and to the master of 
the house as the " study." Here he kept his surgical 
instruments and appliances, and did his best to relieve 
the sufferings of the old and infirm who came to him 
for advice. The knowledge of medicine which he had 
acquired in Edinburgh was thus called into requisition, 
and his skill in the healing art soon proved itself far 
from contemptible. He was kind to the villagers in a 
variety of ways, and his memory is still cherished in 
Foston with affectionate respect. One act of charity 
which was greatly appreciated was the gift of a quart 
of milk daily to a number of poor people in the parish. 
In order that each might get exactly the same, and 
thus jealousy be avoided, he provided cans for the 
purpose of equal capacity, and they were all marked 
with his initials. He soon made himself at home with 
his parishioners, and sought to brighten the lives of 
the people around him in various ways. He was a 
great pedestrian at this period of his life, and moved 
freely about amongst the cottages of Foston and 
Thornton, where many traditions of his kindliness and 
consideration still linger. 

The distress amongst the poor throughout the 
country at the close of the Peninsular War was 
aggravated by the failure of the harvest of 1816, and 
the people of Foston shared the common privation 
which ensued. Bad and insufiicient food reduced 
many to the verge of the grave, and fever of a malig- 
nant type prevailed that winter in the village, and 
carried off some of the inhabitants, — and " Sydney 
visited them all constantly, every day," was the testi- 
mony of his wife in a forgotten letter to a friend, which 



184 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

has just come to light. In the midst of all this misery 
and suffering lie went to and fro, calmly and kindly, 
and did everything in his power by medical skill and 
clerical ministrations to relieve or lessen the troubles 
of the poor, and his attitude at this crisis in the little 
world of Foston in which he now moved, gave him a 
hold upon the affections of the people which he never 
lost. 

Adjoining the rectory grounds there are a number 
of small gardens, filled with well-grown fruit-trees, 
and these gardens were planned, stocked, and given to 
the villagers at a merely nominal rent by Sydney 
Smith. The people still speak gratefully of " Sydney's 
Orchards," as they are termed, and last spring the 
gnarled branches of the old trees were richly laden 
with pink and white blossoms, which, seen from the 
village street, against the dark-green background of 
the rector's plantation, with the red-tiled roof of the 
parsonage beyond, peeping through the foliage, formed 
a pretty picture. The shrubberies around the house 
were designed by Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and the 
ornamental flower-beds on the lawn attest the fine taste 
which reigned at the rectory, and was apparent in 
every detail of its arrangements. 

The living of Foston was chiefly derived from land, 
and one farm of three hundred acres close to the rectory 
he himself cultivated, and did so with a considerable 
degree of success, in spite of his own assertion about 
not knowing the difference between a turnip and a 
carrot. He kept a sharp eye on the labourers, and 
part of his stock-in-trade as a farmer was a ship 
captain's speaking-trumpet and a large telescope. He 
was thus able to watch from his study window opera- 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 185 

tions in the neighbouring fields, and, standing on the 
steps of the rectory, he could speak in commanding 
tones of authority to the distant ploughman. He was 
a strict master, and could not tolerate careless and idle 
people around him, and sometimes the revelations of 
his telescope were of a nature to ruffle his temper. 
One day, for example, a lad at work in the fields lay 
down in the furrow, and spread out his arms in order 
to teach his companions how to swim. In the midst of 
the lesson, Sydney came suddenly from behind a hedge, 
and after gazing for a moment in amazement at the 
scene, ordered the cidprit to come to the " justice-room " 
in the evening. The poor boy was, however, too much 
afraid to venture until he was sent for, but the sequel 
proved that he had little to dread. His master 
reproved him for stealing his time, and told him never 
to be such a simpleton again as to try and swim on 
dry land. He was then goodhumouredly dismissed 
to the kitchen with a shilling in his pocket, and a 
recommendation to the cook. On another occasion a 
man on the farm blundered to such an extent that his 
master completely lost his temper, and called him a 
fool. " God never made man a fool," growled the 
transgressor. " That is quite true, sir," was the 
immediate retort ; " but man was not long in making 
a fool of himself." 

He was particularly fond of children and young 
people, and liked to have them around him at the 
rectory. He used to contrive all sorts of little services 
in order to keep the village lads out of mischief, and 
whilst he always had a kind word and pleasant smile 
for the industrious and respectful, those who were 
idle or impertinent became the object of sarcastic 



186 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

remarks whicli usually had tlie desired effect. A 
number of tlie children, both boys and girls, were 
employed for a few hours a day in gathering sticks in 
the plantation, sweeping the fallen leaves from the 
lawn, weeding the flower-beds, or helping in the work 
of the farmstead. The children, in almost every case, 
were proud to work for the rector, for he took such a 
lively interest in them, and in all that they did, that 
they felt him to be their friend as well as their master. 
In his deahngs with their parents, he seemed always 
anxious to deepen the sense of responsibility to the 
children, and he encouraged them by every means in 
his power to forward, by personal self-denial, the future 
advantage of their families. " The haunts of Happi- 
ness are varied," he would sometimes say, " but I have 
more often found her among little children, home 
firesides, and country houses, than anywhere else." ^ 

Occasionally, it must be confessed that he was unduly 
harsh and inconsiderate with the little work-people in 
the rectory grounds, and there were times when he 
seems scarcely to have measured the force of his words, 
or realized the strength of his fingers. For instance, 
to stand all day on the lawn with a large placard with 
the word " Thief" printed boldly upon it, was a heavy 
punishment to award to a little girl for biting a fallen 
peach; and to pinch an urchin's ears so vigorously 
that they tingled in old age at the remembrance of 
the episode, was a severe penalty to incur for the 
hig-h crime and misdemeanour of falling into a brown 
study under an apple-tree, and betraying undisguised 
admiration for the tempting fruit, and too keen an 
interest in its ultimate fate. It was not nncommon 
* " Memoir of Sydney Smith," chap. x. p. 194. 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 187 

for Sydney Smith, on second thoughts, to see that he 
had regarded such venial offences in too serious a light, 
and he was not too proud a man to acknowledge an 
error of judgment even to a village lad. It is only 
fair to add that in both the cases mentioned, and in 
others of the same kind, he managed, by subsequent 
acts of kindness and consideration, to convince the 
delinquents themselves that they had no truer friend 
in the parish than the rector. Towards the younger 
children he was extremely indulgent, and as he passed 
to and fro through the village, the little ones hastened 
to the cottage doors to greet him. The people of 
Foston still relate that young children felt no fear of 
him, but were accustomed to run after him on the road, 
" pulKng at his coat tails," and roguishly clamouring 
for the sweets which they knew he always carried in 
their interests. 

Sydney Smith's journeys to Malton and York, and 
even much further afield, were usually performed in 
that " ancient green chariot, supposed to have been the 
earliest invention of the kind," which he discovered in 
the " back settlements of a York coachmaker," and of 
which he has given in the following words so graphic 
a description : " I brought it home in triumph to my 
admiring family. Being somewhat dilapidated, the 
village tailor lined it, the village blacksmith repaired 
it; nay, but for Mr, Sydney's earnest entreaties, we 
believe the village painter would have exercised his 
genius upon the exterior ; it escaped this danger, how- 
ever, and the result was wonderful. Each year added 
to its charms; it grew younger and younger; anew 
wheel, a new spring; I christened it the Immortal." ^ 
" Memoir of Sydney Smitli," cliap. vii. p. 115. 



188 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Longf after the "Immortal" had rumbled out of 
Foston for the last time, the " village tailor," Thomas 
Johnson, used to relate an incident connected with the 
lining of the chariot which might have brought his 
own career, as well as Sydney Smith's, to an abrupt 
termination. It seems that the man had received his 
orders from Mrs. Smith, and, according to his state- 
ment, they were strictly carried out. When Mr. Smith 
inspected the carriage after the work was finished, he 
declared somewhat sharply that the tailor had not 
followed his instructions. The man maintained the 
contrary with corresponding warmth, and in the course 
of a fruitless altercation on the subject, the rector and 
the tailor both lost their tempers. The tailor, indeed, 
who was naturally very impulsive, at length went so 
far as to cry out that if Mr. Smith ventured to say that 
his work on the "Immortal" was not according to 
instructions again, he would throw his scissors at his 
head. The challenge was at once accepted, and the 
statement emphatically repeated. Wild with passion, 
the tailor hurled his heavy scissors with such force 
across the room that they stuck fast in the opposite 
wall, and if Sydney had not seen his danger and darted 
instantly aside, the consequences would have been 
distressing. After rating the man in angry terms for 
his obstinate folly and ungovernable temper, in high 
dudgeon the rector stalked rapidly home, leaving his 
opponent, whose wrath had found some relief in the 
flight of the scissors, still in a sullen and defiant 
frame of mind. Presently, to the tailor's intense sur- 
prise, the rector reappeared, and began to address him 
in friendly and apologetic tones. They were both 
right it seemed. Sydney was right in declaring that 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 189 

the work was not in accordance with the instractions 
he had given ; the tailor was right in maintaining that 
he had hned the carriage in the way he had been told. 
The missing link between the rector's wish and the 
tailor's work was found in a mistake which Mrs. Smith 
had made. Mutual explanations and protestations duly 
followed, and with perfect good humour on. both sides, 
and the gift of half-a-crown on the rector's, the 
awkward episode ended. 

During the entire period of his life in Foston, 
Sydney Smith was, to quote his own words, " village 
parson, village doctor, village comforter, village magis- 
trate, and Edinburgh Reviewer,"® and more than one 
of these distinctions was recognized even by the juve- 
nile population of the place. " I was walking with 
him one day," relates his wife in an unpublished 
fragment, " and we met a little round-faced, cherry- 
cheeked boy. Sydney stopped and gave him a sugar- 
plum. ' Now, what's my name ? ' ' Don't naw.' ' Not 
know ? Why, you little rogue, you do know my 
name quite well. Tell me what it is.' After a little 
hesitation — ' Doctor, the parson ! ' Another sugar- 
plum." 

Sydney Smith lived on the most friendly terms with 
the poor of his parish, and had a kindly word or a 
smile of recognition for every one he met. Mrs. Smith 
established a singing class at the rectory for the young 
women of the neighbourhood, and won the hearts of 
the poor girls by helping them to make bonnets. The 
rector conducted a Bible-class for youths, and there 
are still one or two old men in Foston who gratefully 

^ " Memoir of Sjdney Smith," chap. vii. p. 115. 



190 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

recall tlie instruction in the Scriptures wliicli they 
received sixty years ago from the Rev. Sydney Smith. 

The Rector of Foston was a great favourite with his 
servants, and their allegiance to him was close and 
loyal, and such as mere money can never obtain. 
Lady Holland assures us that her father hardly ever 
lost a servant except from marriage or death. " People 
complain of their servants," are his own words; "1 
never had a bad one ; but then I study their com- 
forts — that is one recipe for securing good servants." "^ 
The memory of Sydney Smith is still cherished with 
reverent affection by the children, and nephews and 
nieces of the old servants at Foston, and here a " pre- 
sent from the master " is shown, and there a bundle 
of faded letters written by Mrs. Smith and the young 
ladies from Combe-Florey to their humble friends in 
Yorkshire ; and yonder, a quaint portrait of Windham, 
aged five, a veritable " little boy blue," hangs on the 
parlour wall. 

From many incidents, in themselves too trivial to 
relate, the impression of Sydney Smith as a kindly, 
genial, quick-tempered, large-hearted man, full of 
authority, but equally full of good-will, is strength- 
ened and confirmed. The household at Foston 
consisted for many years of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, 
their four children, the cook, housemaid, lady's- 
maid, laundry-maid, the girl " Bunch," and the 
man " Jack Robinson." A kind-hearted old Yorks- 
woman, energetic and practical, Molly Mills by name, 
reigned supreme in the adjoining farmstead, and was 
deservedly a great favourite not only with her master, 

' " Xemoir of Sydney SmitL," chap. xi. p. 244. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 191 

but witli every one about the place. The lady's-maid 
was Annie Kay, a noble and devoted servant, of a 
type which now, alas, seems almost obsolete. She 
remained thirty years under Sydney Smith's roof, and 
" ended by nursing her old master through his long 
and painful illness night and day." ^ She filled various 
offices in the household both at Foston and Combe- 
Florey, and eventually rose, like most faithful servants, 
into an undefined position of the utmost trust and 
influence. 

In his celebrated account of his establishment at 
Foston, Sydney Smith states that he " caught up a 
little garden-girl, made like a milestone, christened 
her Bunch, put a napkin in her hand, and made her 
my butler."^ Bunch was a very robust and broad- 
set girl, and doubtless that fact accounts for the 
sobriquet she received from her master. Her real 
name was Rachel Masterman, and her duties were to 
wait on Sydney Smith at table, to attend to the jus- 
tice-room, to bring the hot water in the morning, and, 
in a word, to make herself generally useful. In pro- 
cess of time Bunch became cook, and accompanied 
the family in that capacity to Combe-Florey, where 
she married the coachman. Her last days were spent 
in York, and she died there a considerable time ago. 
When Bunch was promoted to the position of cook 
at Foston, another little girl was "caught up" by 
Sydney Smith, and installed in the vacant place as his 
personal attendant. The second little girl, in old age, 
still survives at Helperby, near York, and is the only 

* "Memoir of Sydney Smith," chap. vii. p, 117. 
® Ibid. chap. vii. p. 114 



192 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

one now living who can speak from personal know- 
ledge of the ordinary life at Foston. She recalls with 
manifest pleasure long forgotten acts of kindness, and 
is able to relate characteristic little incidents which 
help to explain the attachment which Sydney Smith's 
servants felt for their master. Her duties, like 
Bunch's, were to attend to her master's wants, night 
and morning, to fold his large white cravats in a par- 
ticular way, to mix his lather for shaving in a huge 
wooden bowl, and to run to and fro through the house 
at his summons. Unlike her predecessor, she had not 
to wait upon her master at table; for when Bunch 
was promoted, the family circumstances had improved, 
and a man-servant was then engaged. 

The master of the house took a mischievous delight 
in making his servants laugh in the presence of 
visitors, and the more solemn their aspect, the more 
eager he appeared to excite their risible faculties. 
Passing testimony to this odd habit is given by Lord 
Brougham, who states that he has seen him at dinner, 
at Foston, drive the servants from the rooms with the 
tears running down their faces in peals of inextin- 
guishable laughter.^ Even before a regular man- 
servant was engaged. Bunch seems only to have waited 
at table when the family were alone ; at all events, 
when company arrived another famous personage 
was called upon the scene as chief butler in " Jack 
Robinson," the carpenter. Everybody has read in the 
pages of Lady Holland, Sydney Smith's own state- 
ment in reference to this man, and his services in 
providing the new rectory with furniture. " I had 

^ " Memoirs of Life and Times of Lord Brougham," vol. i. chap. iv. 



OF THE KEY. SYDNEY SMITH. 193 

little furniture, so I bought a cart-load of dea-ls ; took 
a carpenter (who came to me for parish relief), called 
Jack Robinson, with a face like a full moon, into my 
service ; established him in a barn, and said, ' Jack, 
furnish my house.' You see the result ! " ^ When 
this statement first appeared in print, some of Sydney 
Smith's acquaintances in Yorkshire poohpoohed the 
whole story, and were inclined to treat it as a sheer 
romance. The matter was, however, exactly as he 
himself stated. When he made Foston his home, he 
had " little furniture," in comparison, at least, with 
the size of his new house, and " Jack Robinson " set 
to work to fit up the vacant rooms. An interesting 
sample of Jack Robinson's handiwork at Foston Rec- 
tory is now in the possession of the writer in the 
•shape of a comfortable arm-chair of rough make and 
old-fashioned design. The chair was formerly the 
property of William Kilvington, of Foston, and it had 
been in his cottage there ever since it was left behind 
by Sydney Smith on his removal to Combe-Florey. 
Kilvington was coachman to Sydney Smith during the 
last five years of his residence in Yorkshire, and he 
married the cook whom " Bunch " succeeded. Kil- 
vington, who had often driven his master in the 
" Immortal" on long and short journeys, was able to 
tell the writer, in the summer of 1883, many episodes 
concerning those far distant days. The chair (of 
which a representation is given at the close of this 
chapter) stood for a number of years in Sydney's 
justice-room, where it was in constant use ; it finally 
found its way into the kitchen, and was given by 
Sydney Smith to Mrs. Kilvington at the sale which 
'■' " Memoir of Sydney Smith," chap. vii. ]>. 114. 

O 



19^! THE LIFE AND TIMES 

preceded his removal to the south. His old servant 
was sitting on the chair at the sale, when the rector 
came forward to say good-bye. As he turned to leave 
her, Sydney Smith said, " Take that chair home, and 
keep it in memory of me." For more than half a 
century the chair remained by the fireside in Kilving- 
ton's cottage, close to the gates of Foston Rectory.'"' 

Three years after Sydney Smith settled in York- 
shire, " Bobus " paid him a visit, and gathered whilst 
at Foston that his brother was anxious to secure for 
his eldest boy Douglas the advantage of a few years'" 
training at a public school. The building of the rec- 
tory had seriously crippled his income, and for some 
years afterwards he had to practise the utmost economy. 
Douglas and Windham both received in consequence 
their early education from their father, whilst Mrs. 
Smith acted as governess to Saba and Emily. During 
his stay at Foston, in 1817, Bobus offered to send his 
eldest nephew to Westminster School. The proposal 
was gladly accepted, and it was arranged that Douglas, 
now a fine lad entering his teens, should go there in 
the spring of the following year. 

Lady Holland has described a journey which 
Sydney Smith and his family took, soon after their 
settlement at Foston, to Manchester, in order to 
visit Mr. (afterwards Sir George) Phillips, at that 
time a well-known Lancashire manufacturer. The 
visit proved so pleasant to all concerned, that it was 
often repeated, and the acquaintance between Sir 
Greorge and Sydney Smith soon ripened into a firm 
friendship. The " Immortal " was called into service 

^ Mrs. Kilvington died many years ago. William Kilvington,— 
an intelligent and handsome old man, — died a few months since. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 195 

on these expeditions, and proved itself a comfortable 
though somewhat slow and inelegant travelling coach. 
Sir George Phillips lived at Sedgley Hall, Prestwich, 
near Manchester, and it was there that Sydney Smith 
was frequently his guest between the years 1815 and 
1827. Sir George Phillips was on intimate terms 
with some of the best families in Lancashire and 
Cheshire ; and it is believed by those who are most 
likely to be informed on such a point, that it was 
through his visits to Sedgley Hall that Sydney Smith 
became acquainted with the Stanleys of Alderley, the 
Davenports of Capesthorne, the Leycesters of Toft, 
the Wilbrahams of Delamere, and others of the Cheshire 
aristocracy. Sydney Smith's published letters, and 
others which have passed through the hands of the 
writer, conclusively prove that he was a guest on 
several occasions at the charming seats in Cheshire 
of the ancient families named, and the Leycesters 
and Wilbrahams, and probably also the Stanleys and 
Davenports, were entertained by him at Foston and 
Combe-Florey. 

Sydney Smith's visits at the country houses of his 
friends were usually extremely short, for he was a 
firm believer in Miss Ferrier's dictum, that country- 
visits should seldom exceed three days — the rest day, 
the dressed day, and the pressed day. There are no 
traditions at Alderley Park, Toft Hall, or Capesthorne 
of the visits which he paid to those places in the earlier 
years of the century, for those who entertained him 
have, of course, long since passed away. The writer 
has, however, seen a somewhat severe criticism which 
Sydney Smith one day, whilst a visitor at Toft, 
scribbled in a then popular romance ; and he has also 



196 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

read in his own journal the brief entry : " Sunday, 
10th October, 1824. Preached on Hatred at Alderley." 
In a letter to Lady Mary Bennett (daughter of his 
friend, the Earl of Tankerville) which Sydney Smith 
wrote from Sedgley Hall, Manchester, January, 1817, 
he states, " I am going to preach a charity sermon 
next Sunday. I desire to make three or four hundred 
weavers cry, which it is impossible to do since the late 
rise in cotton." ^ Whether the preacher succeeded in 
his attempt to make the weavers cry, cannot now be 
discovered, but there was a young girl present in 
Prestwich Church, Manchester, on Sunday morning, 
January 12th, 1817, who still remembers in old age 
how fast her tears fell during that sermon. Miss 
Laura Leycester, of Toft, was herself a guest at 
Sedgley Park when Sydney Smith, accompanied by 
Douglas, arrived there on a visit to Sir George 
Phillips. Miss Leycester had not previously met the 
famous Edinburgh Reviewer, whom she afterwards 
knew intimately as a visitor to her father's houses at 
Toft and London. Sydney assured the young lady 
that he would certainly make her cry that day at 
church, and she maintained with equal decision that 
he would accomplish no such thing. " As I came 
down stairs to go to church," relates Miss Leycester, 
" I heard him call to his son : ' Douglas ! look for my 
sermon-book — it is under the mat at the bottom of 
the stairs ! ' " The charity sermons of Sydney Smith 
were always very impressive, and full of moving 
appeals, and now and then of heart-rending facts 
with which he was personally acquainted. At Prest- 
wich Church on that far off Sunday, he seems to have 
* Published Correspondence, p. 371. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 197 

put fortli all Ms powers, and one of his hearers at least 
forgot all else, and could hardly look at the pulpit 
through her gathering tears, for, in her own words, 
'* He drew some very touching pictures of destitution." 
An hour later, at Sedgley Hall, the preacher looked up 
and said, " I succeeded in making you cry, Miss Leyces- 
ter ;" and that lady's confession to the writer to-day 
is, " He certainly did." 

Some of his impromptu sayings reveal his humour 
very happily, and they appear to have flashed to the 
surface of his ordinary talk in a remarkable manner. 
The pages of Lady Holland's hfe of her father contain 
many illustrations of his droll power of expression, 
and his ever-flowmg wit, and the following examples 
are taken almost at random from it, and from 
other reliable sources of information. It was at his 
brother's house at Farming Wood that he told the 
child who was stroking the tortoise to " please it," 
that he might as well stroke the dome of St. Paul's to 
please the Dean and Chapter. The difficulties con- 
nected with placing wood pavement around the 
Cathedral were according to him easily solved, for when 
the subject came up for discussion in the chapter-room 
of St. Paul's, he is reported to have said in his most 
matter-of-fact tones, and with his usual innocent look, 
" H my reverend brethren here will but lay their 
heads together, the thing will be done in a trice ! " 
As a critic of pictures, his verdict occasionally seems 
to have been more accurate than artistic, and it is not 
difficult to understand the virtuous indignation con- 
veyed in the " look that ought to have killed me," 
when, standing before a small landscape at Bowood 
with a distinguished connoisseur, he met the glowing 



198 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

admiration which found expression in the words, 
" Immense breadth of hght and shade ! " with the 
apparently obtuse, and certainly provoking rejoinder, 
" Yes ; about an inch and a half ! " He seemed able 
to hit off in a phrase the characteristics of the 

people whom he knew. " Lady L is a remarkably 

clever, agreeable woman, but Nature has made one 

trifling omission — a heart ! " " Yes, Mr. has 

great good sense ; but I never met a manner more 
entirely without frill." Nothing could be more gal- 
lant, and scarcely anything more graceful, than his 
response to a beautiful young lady who exclaimed, 
" Oh, Mr. Smith, I cannot bring this flower to perfec- 
tion ! " " Then let me lead," said he, as he took 
her hand, " perfection to the flower." " You must 
take a walk on an empty stomach," Rogers declares 
was the advice of Sydney Smith's medical man to him 
on one occasion. The patient quietly looked up with 
a glance of inquiry, and naively uttered but one 
word—" Whose ? " 




A CHAIR FROM FOSTON KECTORY. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 199 



CHAPTER IX. 

1818—1824. 

Family Changes — Attitude on Public Questions — The Treatment 
of Prisoners — The Game Laws — An Accession of Fortune — 
Busy Life at Foston. 

The departure of Douglas in the spring of 1818 to 
Westminster School, was the first break in the circle 
at Foston, and although the separation was inevit- 
able, it was none the less keenly felt on that account. 
Sensible, kindly, and bright, the lad had endeared 
himself to all who knew him, and was daily becoming 
more and more of a companion to his father in his 
favourite recreation — a long country walk. It would 
be absurd to say that Sydney Smith was ever " buried 
alive " at Foston ; nevertheless, the first five or six 
years of his life there were spent in great retirement, 
and month after month sometimes rolled away with- 
out bringing him any society other than that which an 
obscure agricultural village afforded. He had little 
time, however, to cultivate despondency, or to wring 
his hands over h.is hard fate. He was a county magis- 
trate, a gentleman farmer, an Edinburgh Reviewer, 
and the village parson and doctor rolled into one ; and 
what between the Law and the Gospel, Edinburgh and 
Foston, his books and his bottles, his family and his 



200 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

farm, his time was filled up witli honest work, which 
ability made a delight, and to which variety lent a 
zest. Every now and then, there are indications, how- 
ever, that the isolation of his position oppressed him ; 
but there are no signs whatever that he allowed the 
sense of loneliness to unfit him 'for the energetic dis- 
charsre of the common duties which confronted him 
with each new day. " Pray, send me some news," he 
writes on one occasion ; " it is very pleasant in these 
deserts to see the handwriting of an old friend — it is 
like the print on the sand seen by Robinson Crusoe." 
The consolations of a student were an unfailing 
resource to the rector of Foston on long winter nights, 
when the snow lay on the silent, untrodden fields, and 
the household gathered 

" Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed 
In a tumultuous privacy of storm." 

He was accustomed to declare that he was at a loss to 
understand how any reflecting man could trust him- 
self in the solitude of the country without clinging to 
the love of knowledge as his sheet anchor. He held 
that, though the best books were apt to become a little 
languid and soporific at times, there was at least this 
advantage over conversation, that a man and his book 
generally kept the peace with tolerable success, and 
that if they did quarrel, the man could at all events 
shut his book and toss it into a corner of the room — 
an action not always quite so safe or easy to do in the 
case of a living folio. 

It was but seldom that the " Immortal " in those 
earlier years at Foston travelled so far as Cheshire, and 
beyond an annual trip to town by the mail coach, and 



OF THE BEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 201 

an occasional visit to York to meet his old friends of 
the ISForthern Circuit, or a few days at Scarborough 
with Bobus, Sydney Smith was compelled, by the flat 
refusal of sixpence to do the work of a shilling, to stay 
at* home and content himself with such interests as he 
could find or invent amid his pastoral surroundings. 
His success as a farmer was not immediate, and never 
overwhelming, and like every one else, he had to buy 
his experience. The outlay upon Foston Rectory kept 
him a poor man for several years, and it was not until 
1821, when his circumstances were improved by an 
unexpected legacy, that his financial anxieties were 
ended. The following statement was made by him to 
a friend, and it is now published for the first time, as 
it gives a graphic account not only of the exact condi- 
tion of Foston when he came to it, but also recounts 
the changes which he had been able to effect there in 
the course of a very few years : — 

" When first I was presented to the Chancery living 
of Foston, there had been no resident clergyman for 
upwards of one hundred and fifty years. I had a 
cottage valued at bOl. by way of parsonage-house, three 
hundred acres of glebe-land entirely exhausted, stiles, 
gates, &c., &c., all in ruins, and not a single farm- 
building for my tenants. From my foolish moderation 
and ignorance of country matters, I received 30/. for 
dilapidations. I have built a very handsome parson- 
age-house, barns, farm-buildings, stables, and agricul- 
tural buildings of every kind, at an expense of above 
4000Z. I have brought a hundred acres into ex- 
cellent tillage, let the rest to responsible tenants, and 
have constantly resided upon my parsonage. The 
living is 6001. a year, so that {1001. deducted for what 



202 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the salary of a curate would be, and my age (fifty) con- 
sidered), I have spent upon the living more than it is 

worth. 

Sydney Smith. 

Foston, July 29th, 1820. 

Strict economy marked all the arrangements of the 
household at Foston between the years 1814 and 1820, 
and the inclination of the rector to move freely about 
amongst his friends was held in check by the constant 
strain on a slender purse of ordinary expenditure. 
Writing to Jeffrey to thank him for an invitation to 
visit Edinburgh, he states that nothing could give him 
more pleasure, but frankly adds, " Poverty, agricul- 
ture, children, clerical confinement, all conspire to put 
such a pleasure out of my reach." ' His friends were 
beginning to find out his fondness for the spoils of the 
chase, and his letters abound in quaint allusions of this 
sort to their kindness, " Lord Tankerville has sent me 
a whole buck — this necessarily takes up a good deal of 
my time." ^ His acknowledgments of such presents 
were always characteristic, as the accompanying note 
■ — besides many already published — reveals : — 

[xiv.] Foston, Sept., 1817. 

Deae Davenport, — You have no idea what a num- 
ber of handsome things were said of you when your 
six partridges were consumed to-day. Wit, literature, 
and polished manners were ascribed to you — some 
good quality for each bird. You never met with a 
more favourable jury. I conclude the eloge with my 
best thanks for your kind and flattering attention. We 
all, however, objected to your equipage ; longevity is 

' Published Correspondence, p. 382. - Ibid., p. 386. 



OF THE KEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 203 

incompatible with driving two horses at length. Man 
is frequently cut off even in buggies ; an inch to the 
right or the left may send you to the Davenports of 
ages past, and put half Cheshire in mourning. 

Ever most truly yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

Edward Davenport, Esq. 

In February, 1818, the Earl of Ossory died, and 
left his estates in Bedfordshire to his nephew. Lord 
Holland. The vacant living of Ampthili went with 
the property, and Lord Holland instantly seized the 
opportunity to offer it to his friend, but as it could not 
be held with Foston, it was gratefully declined. 

The following letter — written a month or two later 
to Lady Holland — has reference to an approaching 
visit to town to see Douglas settled at school : — 
[xv.j Foston, April 22nd, 1818. 

My dear Lady Holland, — There is no place more 

agreeable to me, or to anybody else, than Holland 

House; but I have a great deal to do in town about 

Douglas and Westminster, and till he is fairly housed 

there it will be quite impossible for me to be absent 

from London, For this reason, I must postpone my 

visit to you, though of course I shall come to see you 

as soon as I am landed, which will be next Tuesday or 

Wednesday. I am delighted to see country gentlemen 

rebelling against the Government upon any occasion ; 

they had better do right in the wrong place than not 

at all. 

I remain always, 

Dear Lady Holland, 

Affectionately yours. 

Lady Holland, Sydney SmITH. 

Kensinsrton. 



204 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

At first all went well with Douglas at Westminster, 
and his father was able to report that the lad had 
" fought his first battle, come off victorious, and is 
completely established." ^ But in the autumn he fell 
dangerously ill of fever, and his mother hastened to 
London to nurse him. A visit which had been planned 
to Lord Grey at Ho wick for November, had in con- 
sequence to be abandoned, and it was determined 
instead that the whole family should spend Christmas in 
London with the young patient, who by this time was 
fortunately convalescent. Lord Grrey was wishful that 
Sydney Smith should accompany him to Lambton 
Castle, and break his homeward journey there in order 
that he might become better acquainted with Mr. 
Lambton, M.P. (afterwards first Earl of Durham). 
Mr. Lambton had married Earl Grey's eldest daughter 
two years previously, and Lady Louisa had of course 
known Sydney Smith as her father's friend all through 
her girlhood, and was eager now to welcome such a 
guest to her husband's stately home on the banks of 
the Wear. The following letter was written to Mr. 
Lambton, when his son's illness compelled Sydney 
Smith to relinquish his contemplated visit to the north ; 
it was found with two or three others written to him, 
which occur in these pages, in an interesting collection 
of autograph letters at Lambton Castle, and it is here 
inserted with the permission and through the kindness 
of the present Earl of Durham : — 

[xvi.] Foston, Saturday, Dec. 5tb, 1818. 

Mr DEAR SiK, — Lord Grey — who from his serious 
turn of mind always desires to have a clergyman of 

^ Published Correspondence, p. 388, 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 205 

his parties — had planned to smuggle me into Larabton, 
and had the arrangements taken place this week, it 
would with your kind connivance have been effected ; 
but I am going with all my family to London at the end 
of next week, and though you perform this with as 
much ease as a ball quits a cannon, you cannot conceive 
the blunders and agony, the dust and distraction, the 
roaring and raving with which a family like mine is 
conveyed through three degrees of latitude to its place 
of destination. The 7th will be too late, and render my 
visit quite impossible. I hope to be more fortunate on 
some other occasion. It will be very agreeable to me to 
pay a visit to Lady Louisa and yourself, and 
I remain, my dear Sir, 

Very truly yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

J. G. Lambton, Esq., M P. 

In January, Douglas was not only well again and at 
school, but had worked himself to the head of his class, 
and a month later Sydney Smith, 'having paid in the 
interval a brief visit to Bath, to see his father, was 
back at Foston, and in the thick of his work once 
more. 

The condition of the prisons of this country began to 
excite general attention at the close of the Peninsular 
War, and the devoted labours and tragic fate of John 
Howard at last bore fruit by awakening the public mind 
to the nameless horrors of the existing system. The 
heart of the nation was touched, moreover, by the story 
of Elizabeth Fry's ministry to the degraded women of 
Newgate, and by the marvellous influence she exerted 
over the most abandoned through her Avomanly 



206 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

kindness and Christian sympathy. In the year 1818, 
there were committed to the jails of the United 
Kingdom upwards of 107,000 persons, and the felon 
convicted of the most atrocious crime and the 
untried stripling charged with some venial offence 
were left unmolested together. No wonder that 
Sydney Smith should declare that there existed " in 
every county in England, large public schools main- 
tained at the expense of the county for the en- 
couragement of profligacy and vice, and for provid- 
ing a proper succession of housebreakers, profligates, 
and thieves." The sanitary state of the prisons 
was almost as bad as their moral condition, and 
in both senses they were disgraceful and pestilential 
places. Lady Holland relates that her father, who was 
deeply interested in the published accounts of Mrs. 
Fry's noble and humane efforts, obtained permission to 
accompany her on one occasion, to Newgate. He after- 
wards declared that he " never felt more deeply affected 
or impressed than by the beautiful spectacle he there 
witnessed ; it made him, he said, weep like a child." * 

In the spring of 1819, the question of the Reform of 
the Criminal Law was before the House of Commons, 
and that fact led him to write the following unpublished 
letters to the Marquis of Lansdowne, who, as Lord 
Henry Petty, had been, like himself, a friend and pupil 
of Dugald Stewart's, in distant Edinburgh days. The 
suggestions reveal not only his intimate acquaintance 
with the subject in all its details, but also the humane 
and practical spirit in which he approached its dis- 
cussion. 

* " Memoir of Sydney Smith," cliap. vii. p. 118. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 207 

[xvii.] Foston, March 25th, 1819. 

Dear Lord Lansdowne, — On all such occasions 
there are generally too many suggestions instead of too 
few. The few rules I send proceed from evils I have 
observed. It is very singular to find the public so 
humane and reasonable that they will listen to these 
subterraneous miseries, and very good and wise in you 
to derive from this spirit a law of permanent humanity 
which will outlive it. 

I remain, my dear Lord Lansdowne, 

With great respect and regard, yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

Pray do not think of answering my letter ; it requires 
none. 

Proposed Rules for Prisons. 

I. The names of the visitinor mas^istrates and their 
places of abode to be printed and stuck up in all rooms 
where prisoners are confined, under penalty to jailors. 

II. Names of visiting magistrates to be called 
over by the clerk of the peace, or clerk of assize, in 
open court, on the first day of any assize and quarter 
sessions, and the judge or chairman to ask in open 
court whether they have visited the prisons, and have 
any observation to offer upon their state and condition. 
Penalties to clerk of the peace and of assize. 

III. A book to be kept by the jailor, noting down 
the visits of magistrates to the prison, to be read in 
open court in the same manner. 

IV. More power to visiting magistrates to make 
alterations between session and session, subject to 



208 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

tbe approbation of magistrates assembled at quarter 
sessions or assizes. 

V. Divisions of accused and committed, young and 
old offenders. 

VI. Neither beer nor spirits without order of the 
apothecary, or permission of magistrates in visiting. 
Heavy penalties. 

YII. No Roman Catholic or Dissenter compellable 
to attend the prison worship if he objects to do so, and 
expresses himself willing to attend a clergyman of his 
own persuasion. 

VIII. Power in two magistrates to confine for two 
or three days in solitary confinement any refractory 
prisoner. 

IX. No prisoner to be locked up in sleeping-room 
for more than ten hours at night. N.B. — They are now 
locked up in small rooms in winter from four in the 
evening till eight in the morning, without fire or candle, 
to avoid the trouble and expense of watching, lighting, 
and warming them. 

X. No male prisoner after conviction to have less 
than two pounds of bread per day, if their diet is bread 
alone; women, a pound and a half. Prisoners before 
conviction to have per day not less than this, and twice 
a week one pound of meat each. 

XI. Money allowance to be put upon a more 
rational footing. 

A second letter on the same subject, with two or 
three additional hints suggesting more stringent regu- 
lations in reference to prison fare, soon followed the 
first : — 

[xvm.] York, May 31st, 1819. 

Dear Lord Lansdowne, — Spirituous liquors are 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 209 

forbidden under heavy penalties ; fermented liquors 
are not so in jails, consequently they are introduced 
publicly, so are all sorts of meats which felons can pay 
for. Coarse men should be made sorrowful and 
penitent by plain food. A jail is not an object of 
terror if men have friends who send them money, and 
so purchase roast veal and porter. Spirituous liquors 
and dangerous tools are let down from the windows of 
debtors. The weekly allowance is meant for food, but 
spent in a very different way. If you are sitting in a 
committee watching a Bill, these hints — if they have 
not already occurred — may be of some consequence ; 
if they have, you will see my motive, and forgive the 
useless intrusion upon your time. 

Ever yours, dear Lord Lansdowne, 

Very sincerely, 

Sydney Smith. 

1st. No fermented liquor of any sort after trial. 

2nd. A good wholesome allowance of food, and 
no other food but what is allowed. 

3rd. No windows of the apartments of debtors to 
look into the felons' yards. 

4th. Washing allowed, and no money allowance. 

In the course of the summer another letter, in which 
criticism and gossip are amusingly blended, found its 
way to Lord Lansdowne : — 

[XIX.] July 24th, 1819. 

Dear Lord Lansdowne, — I am much obliged by 
your intention of sending me the Prison Eeport. I 
have no doubt it will embrace all the important points, 
but the great difficulty will be to frame a law that 



210 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

will be executed, and not become a dead letter, as tbe 
last statute upon prisons. To do tbis effectually, a 
person sbould be well acquainted witb all tbe subor- 
dinate macbinery, but sucb persons, of course. Lord 
Sidraoutb bas about bim. 

There is a prodigious jealousy among tbe landed 
gentlemen of Tory principles respecting tbis bumanity 
to prisoners, but it will bear down all folly before it. 

In tbe meantime, B is married to tbe widow. 

Tbey would bave been married a long time since, but 
for tbe depreciated state of tbe currency. Sbe vowed 
sbe would not cbange ber situation till tbe bank 
question was settled. We bear a great deal bere of 
tbe miseries and discontents of tbe clotbing counties, 
but are so purely agricultural tbat we are affected by 
notbing but sbowers and sunbeams. 

I hope you bave studied Lord Carlisle's pamphlet 
upon colouring and wrapping up poisons. What are 
we to do for our boot-tops, which are cleaned by oxalic 
acid, if we may not purchase oxalic acid but when 
coloured by rose-pink ? Are we to walk about with 
rose-pink boots ? Did any government ever yet pre- 
scribe a colour for boots, and if a colour, such a 
colour ? 

Walter Scott seems to me tbe same sort of thing 
laboured in a very inferior way, and more careless, 
witb many repetitions of himself. Caleb is overdone. 
Sir W. and Lady Ashton are very good characters, 
and the meeting of tbe two coaches and six tbe best 
scene in the book. The catastrophe is shocking and 
disgusting. 

Pray present my kind regards to the Hollands 
and the Morpeths. I quite agree in all you say of the 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 211 

heirs-apparent. Henry Fox is a very remarkable boy. 
George Howard is full of every good quality which 
his father and mother could wish, or infuse, by their 
own example. 

I am always, dear Lord Lansdowne, 

Yours very truly, 

Sydney Smith. 

The " heirs-apparent," to whom Sydney Smith refers 
in the concluding words of this letter, both lived to suc- 
ceed to their ancestral titles and estates, though neither 
of them left sons to inherit the family honours ; for 
one died childless, and the other was never married.. 
Henry Fox became fourth and last Lord Holland on 
the death of his father in 1 840. He lived much abroad, 
and was at one time British minister at Florence, 
and he died at Naples in 1859. The last master of 
Holland House was worthy of its best traditions, and 
the kindliness of his nature, and the refinement of his 
tastes survive as pleasing memories amongst all who, 
in his day, shared the hospitality of the picturesque 
and- renowned old house at Kensington. 

George Howard, who, like Henry Fox, was born in 
1802, became seventh Earl of Carlisle in 1848, but, as 
Lord Morpeth, he had been long and honourably 
known, both throughout the realm and in the House 
of Commons, as a man of brilliant scholarship, high 
moral sensibility, and cosmopolitan sympathies. He 
entered the Upper House with the reputation of being 
a supporter of the Anti-Corn-Law League, and such a 
circumstance did not enhance his welcome in that 
assembly in the year ] 848. Twice Viceroy of Ireland, 
Lord Carlisle did all that a capable and disinterested 



212 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

man of persuasive lips and generous instincts could 
accomplish to pacify the people of that distracted 
country, and though no one can claim for him the 
reputation of a great statesman, he will still be re- 
membered as a man whose heart was in tune with the 
purest and best tendencies of his time, and who used 
without ostentation and continuously the influence 
which rank and ability gave him to knit all classes of 
the community more closely together, and to promote 
the public good. He died at Castle Howard in 1864. 
The two " heirs-apparent " were youths of seventeen 
when Lord Lansdowne and Sydney Smith exchanged 
favourable opinions concerning them. " George is a 
fine manly, sensible, straightforward young man, full 
of right feelings and opinions," was the verdict which 
Sydney Smith pronounced a year or two later on the 
" heir-apparent " of Castle Howard. He continued 
to take the liveliest interest in young Howard's de- 
velopment. " I wish Greorge," he writes in an un- 
publisiied note, " would read Mr. Wilkes' speech at 
the meeting of Protestants for promoting the prin- 
ciples of toleration — a fine and affecting piece of 
eloquence, and full of such principles as I hope he 
will always display in public life." To Lady Georgiana 
Morpeth,^ the mother of the youth whose early career 
he watched with so much hope, he wrote as follows 
in the autumn of 1819 : — 

[xx.] Foston, Sept. 5th, 1819. 

Dear Lady Georgiana, — Everybody is haunted with 
spectres and apparitions of sorrow, and the imaginary 

* Daughter of the fifth Duke of Devonshire, and afterwards 
Countess of Carlisle, as wife to the sixth earl. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 213 

griefs of life are greater than tlie real. Your rank 
in life rather exposes you the more to these attacks. 
Whatever the English zenith may be, the horizon is 
almost alvYays of a sombre colour. * * * J like in you 
very much that you are a religious woman, because, 
though I have an infinite hatred and contempt for the 
nonsense which often passes under, and disgraces the 
name of religion, I am very much pleased when I 
see anybody religious for hope and comfort, not for 
insolence and interest. About the nature of your 
complaint, I hope and trust you are wrong ; if you 
are right, I shall pity you as much as I please, and 
show that I do so as much as you please. Your 
praise and approbation are very grateful to Mrs. 
Sydney and Saba ; as for me, I will promise never to 
quiz you, that is, only a very little, and to your face, 
and in a low voice, and not before strangers ; and for 
the rest, you will always find me a discreet neighbour 
and a sincere friend. 

Sydney Smith. 

Constable, the publisher, about this time launched 
a new literary journal, entitled the Farmer's Magazine^ 
and in the course of the year 1819 an amusing letter 
appeared in its pages, in which the Rector of Foston 
gave a graphic account of the vagaries of a flock 
of Scotch sheep, which, in his admiration of northern 
mutton, he had rashly introduced to his Yorkshire 
farm. Scotch mutton, he was still of opinion, was a 
great luxury, but he declared that he would rather 
renounce the use of animal food altogether, than ob- 
tain it at the cost of so much anxiety and care. 
Ten times a. day the ploughmen were hastily sum- 



214 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

moned from their work to cliase the Scotch sheep 
out of his neighbour's wheat. They leaped over 
gates, or crawled through hedges which seemed too 
closely set for a rabbit to break. Five or six times 
they laid their heads together, and forthwith pro- 
ceeded briskly on their return journey to the north. 
" My baiUff took a place in the mail, pursued them, 
and overtook them half way to Newcastle ! " All 
efforts to fatten them were in vain. They devoured 
the turnips in winter, and nibbled the clover in 
summer, but still remained provokingly lean. Nor 
was he more successful with his oxen, for in the same 
letter he states that they were twice as ravenous as 
the same number of horses, were awkward in descend- 
ing a hill, and could not ])lough in hot weather. 
Moreover, " It took five men to shoe an ox. They 
ran against my gate-posts, lay down whenever they 
were tired, and ran away at the sight of a stranger. 
I have now got into a good breed of English sheep 
and useful cart-horses, and am doing well." ^ 

The treatment of prisoners was not the only burn- 
ing social topic of the hour, which Sydney Smith, 
in the intervals between his clerical and bucolic 
labours, found time to discuss. His experiences as a 
country clergyman and a county magistrate had 
opened his eyes to the iniquitous condition of the 
Game Laws, and in the pages of the Edinburgh Review 
he employed all his powers of reason, ridicule, and 
persuasion to bring about the repeal of their obsolete 
and unjust enactments. The criminal code of the 
country was harsh and oppressive, and the sacredness 

* " Constable and his Literary Correspondents," vol. iii. chap, 
vii. p. 131. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 215 

of human life counted for little when brought into 
collision with the sacred rights of property.^ Sydney 
Smith was not opposed to the Game Laws in general, 
for he held that game ought, iti common fairness, 
to belong to those who feed it. His contention was 
that, whilst these laws were constructed on a " basis 
of substantial justice," there was a great deal of folly 
and tyranny mixed up with them, and a " })erpetual 
and vehement desire on the part of the country gentle- 
men to push their provisions up to the highest point 
of tyrannical severity." With indignant sarcasm he 
denounced the cruel and unworthy expedient of spring 
guns and inan-traps as vindictive and immoral, and 
impeached such efforts to protect the interests of the 
lord of the manor in the wider interests of humanity. 

The ferocity with which the Game Laws were 
administered, demoralized the peasantry without put- 

^ " Every class strove to have the offences which injured itself 
subjected to the extreme penalty. Our law recognized 223 
capital offences. Nor were these mainly the legacy of the Dark 
Ages, for 156 of them bore no remoter date than the reigns of 
the Georges. * * * If a man injured Westminster Bridge, he 
was hanged. If he appeared disguised on a public road, he was 
hanged. If he cut down young trees ; if he shot at rabbits ; if 
he stole property valued at 5s. ; if he stole anything at all from 
a bleachfield ; if he wrote a threatening letter to extort money ; 
if he returned prematurely from transportation, for any of these 
offences he was immediately hanged. * * * Judge Heath avowed 
from the bench the theory which seemed to govern the criminal 
policy of the time. There was no hope, he said, of regenerating 
a felon in this life. His continued existence would merely diffuse 
a corrupting influence. It was better for his own sake, as well 
as for society, that he should be hanged. In 1816 there were, 
at one time, fifty-eight persons under sentence of death. One of 
these was a child ten years of age " " The Nineteenth Century : 
a History," by Robert Mackenzie, book ii. chap. i. pp. 11, 78. 



216 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ting an end to tlie trade of the poacher. As late as 
the year 1816, an Act was pushed through Parlia- 
ment, which punished with seven years' penal ser- 
vitude every person discovered at night in any 
open ground, armed with net or gun for the purpose 
of snaring or kilhng any kind of game. England 
lay under the blight of the Corn Laws, and not 
bread alone, but almost all the necessaries of life 
were burdened with excessive taxation, and as a 
consequence the privations of the working classes, 
both in town and country, made existence almost 
unendurable. No wonder that the people, rankling 
under the sense of injustice, grew restless and dis- 
contented with their lot, and were ready to lend 
themselves to any wild scheme which the first wander- 
ing agitator might propound. With the growth of 
commerce, luxury spread, and there were soon rich 
merchants and manufacturers in every town in the 
kingdom who were wishful to purchase the game of 
the landed gentry for their tables ; but in 1820 it was 
not only against the law to sell game, but every one 
who ventured to buy it ran the risk of a heavy fine. 
One illustration, m passing, is perhaps enough : " An 
unfortunate householder, who bought a brace of 
partridges for his dinner, was liable to a penalty of 
lOZ." ® Such enactments were of course constantly 
set at defiance, and Sydney Smith, who held that 
nothing will ever separate the wealthy glutton from 
his pheasant, demanded free trade in game. 

In 1820 an Act was passed for the summary punish- 
ment of all persons who wilfully or maliciously 

' Walpole's " History of England from the Conclusion of the 
Great War in 1815," vol. iii. chap. xii. p. 64 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 217 

damaged or trespassed upon any public or private 
property. By this Act tlie offender was immediately 
seized by tlie first man he met, taken before a magis- 
trate, and heavily fined ; or in default of payment, 
sent to gaol for three months. But to so sweeping 
a rule there naturally was an exception, and, as usual, 
it was made in favour of the privileged classes. 
All damage done in hunting was accordingly ex- 
cluded from the operations of the Act, and every man 
duly qualified to carry a gun might ravage his 
neighbours' fields v/ith impunity. Sydney Smith 
pounced like a hawk on this glaring act of injustice, 
which was worthy of the ancient forest laws which the 
Norman kings established in this country ; and was 
too obvious a specimen of class legislature to pass un- 
challenged even sixty years ago. He denounced it as 
the " most impudent piece of legislation that ever crept 
into the statute-book," and demanded, " Is there upon 
earth such a mockery of justice as an Act of Parliament 
pretending to protect property, sending a poor hedge- 
breaker to gaol, and specially exempting from its 
operation the accusing and the judging squire, who, at 
the tail of the hounds, have that morning perhaps, 
ruined as much wheat and seeds as would purchase 
fuel for a whole year to a whole village ? " Like 
Charles Kingsley of a generation later, Sydney Smith 
had not only convictions, but the courage of them, 
and surrounded though the " village parson " was 
on all sides by landed proprietors and squires who, 
for the most part, held political opinions the very 
opposite of his own, he never hesitated to avow his 
sentiments in any company, and, if occasion demanded, 
to defend them. 



218 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

As a magistrate, when called upon to deal with 
crimes of violence, or cases of brutality, assault, 
or desertion, he was not accustomed to spare the 
offender, but his clemency was extended towards a 
half-starved man who snared a hare or shot a pheasant. 
One who knew him intimately when he was Rector of 
Foston, and always looked up to him with admiration 
as the poor man's champion and friend, declares that 
he " used to plead like a lawyer " with his brother 
magistrates at Malton on behalf of the poacher. His 
sympathies were not limited to any section of the com- 
munity, and his services were at the call of all who 
appealed to him on the ground of misery, injustice, 
or oppression. He had nothing but indignation and 
contempt for those " profligate persons who are al- 
ways ready to fling an air of ridicule upon the labours 
of humanity, because they are desirous that what 
they have not virtue to do themselves shall appear 
to be foolish and romantic when done by others." 
He despised men as guilty of a still higher degree 
of depravity who sought " to regulate humanity by 
the income tax, and deemed the wretchedness and 
tears of the poor a fit subject for pleasantry." He 
was one of the earliest advocates of a more merciful , 
treatment of the insane, and he pleaded that it was 
surely high time that kindness took the place of 
chains. Upwards of twenty years before Parliament 
interfered on their behalf, he championed in the pages of 
the Edinburgh Review the cause of the poor climbing- 
boys, and in various other directions, small and great, 
he gave his services without stint, and often in the face 
of bitter ridicule and angry opposition, to the desolate 
and the oppressed. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 219 

The summer of 1819 was marked in many of the 
great towns by ominous symptoms of general discon- 
tent, and poHtical feehng of the most bitter type 
everywhere ran high. As August was drawing to a 
close, the nation was thrilled with the tidings of the 
wanton attack on the unarmed reformers at Man- 
chester, in public meeting assembled, by the local 
military ; and the news of the " Peterloo Massacre," as 
men came to call the cowardly and disgraceful affair, 
drew forth the most indignant protests against so harsh 
and ill-timed a display of power. Strong resolutions, 
denouncing the conduct of the magistrates at Man- 
cheater, were passed in all parts of the kingdom, and 
the Prince Regent's approbation of the " firmness of 
the local authorities " did not heighten the admiration 
of the people for their future Sovereign. Yorkshire, 
always bold and out-spoken on critical occasions, 
vindicated its position by a vast and enthusiastic in- 
dignation meeting of the county, which was called 
by the High Sheriff on requisition. 

Earl Fitzwilliam placed his name to the requisition, 
and was also present at the meeting, and for these 
offences, which were construed into an act of defiance 
of Government, he was abruptly dismissed from his 
post of Lord-Lieutenant of the West Riding. The 
noble family at Castle Howard naturally took a lively 
interest in the renewed controversy which this arbitrary 
act of power gave rise to, and Lady Georgiana 
Morpeth wrote to Sydney Smith on the subject, as 
she knew that he, with his strong love of justice, 
would be in full sympathy wi^h all who recognized in 
Lord Fitzwilliam' s dismissal an attempt to intimidate 
men in high official places from the free expression of 



220 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

their convictions on the gravest questions of the hour. 
His reply was as follows : — 

[xxi.] Foston. 

Deae Lady Georgiana, — Excuse my making a 
short reply to your politics. If a very important 
privilege in a free government appears to have been 
flagrantly violated, and if such violation is approved 
by the administration, it is high time that the people 
should meet together, express their sense of the 
apparent wrong, and call for inquiry. If I were a 
politician, and found the people remiss in meeting on 
such occasions, I would be the first to rouse them. If 
they met of their own accord, I should think it the 
most important of all duties to be amongst them, that 
I might enlighten their ignorance, repress their pre- 
sumption, and direct their energy to laudable purposes. 

For these reasons I think Lord Fitzwilliam has acted 
like a virtuous and honourable man. I am no more 
surprised at his dismissal than you are. It is a blow 
aimed at the manly love of reasonable liberty, the 
natural recompense which a profligate prince requires 
from those to whom he delegates his power. As for 
your confidence in the times, I hope it is as well 
founded as it is agreeable ; but if the revenue continues 
to decay, and commerce and manufactures do not 
soon revive, I think you will not find the sufferers and 
the enjoyers to remain upon the same friendly terms 
which you kindly suppose them to be upon at present. 
When I state my opinion about the meetings of the 
people, of course I acknowledge that honest and 
enlightened men may arrive at conclusions entirely 
opposite. I would punish neither line of conduct, 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 221 

but if either, then I would dismiss lord-lieutenants who 
had not called meetins^s. 

Ever, dear Lady Georgiana, 

Very truly yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

A sudden accession of fortune came to him early in 
1820, when he was entering his fiftieth year, through 
the death of his father's sister, Miss Mary Smith, and 
to his own surprise he then discovered that, through 
her thoughtfulness for her clerical nephew, his income 
was permanently increased to the extent of 400/. a 
year. No one rejoiced more heartily at this improve- 
ment in his circumstances than his noble friend and 
neighbour, the Earl of Carlisle, who, in writing to 
congratulate him, paid a well-deserved tribute to 
the good management which had marked through 
straitened years the household of Foston. " In neat- 
ness and ostensible comfort, Foston," remarks Lord 
Carlisle, " will hardly perceive the benefit of this ad- 
dition to your income, but I trust this augmentation 
will extend to objects of nearer interest to you. I 
have ever regarded the establishment at Foston with 
admiration and surprise, not being above knowing to a 
shilling the monthly consumption and expenses of 
Castle Howard." This addition to his income was a 
great relief, and kept the closing years at Foston free 
from pecuniary anxieties ; it also left Sydney Smith, 
who never at any period of his life would gratify him- 
self at the expense of others, at liberty to cultivate the 
society of his friends in various parts of England. 
Almost the first use he made of his improved financial 
position was to take his wife and children down to 



222 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Somerset, in order that they might pay a visit to his 
father, who had at last settled, after many wanderings, 
at Bishop's Lydiard, near Taunton. Bishop's Lydiard, 
where Mr. Robert Smith died in his 88th year in 1827, 
curiously enough is within three miles of Combe-Florey ; 
and two years later his son became rector of the latter 
place, and thus spent the closing years of his own life 
within an easy walk of the house in which his father 
lived and died. 

His friendship with the Earl and Countess of Car- 
lisle, and with Lord and Lady Morpeth was a source 
of constant gratification to him, and the kindness and 
respect which he continually received from all the 
members of the family at Castle Howard helped to 
cheer him not a little amid that enforced seclusion at 
Foston from which he was beginning — through the im- 
provement in his circumstances — at length to emerge. 
Learning from Lady Ceorgiana Morpeth that she was 
suffering from depression, he wrote in reply a letter, 
which other sufferers from the same complaint may be 
glad to possess, and which contained the following : — 

Advice concerning Low Spirits. 

[xxii.] Foston, February 16tli, 1820. 

Dear Lady Georgjana, — * * * Nobody has suffered 
more from low spirits than I have done — so I feel 
for you. 1st. Live as well as you dare. 2nd. Go 
into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at 
a temperature low enough to give you a slight sen- 
sation of cold, 75° or 80°. 3rd. Amusing books. 4th. 
Short views of human life — not further than dinner or 
tea. 5th. Be as busy as you can. 6th. See as much 
as you can of those friends who respect and like you. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 223 

7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you. 8th. 
Make no secret of low spn-its to your friends, but talk 
of them freely — they are always worse for dignified 
concealment. 9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee 
produce upon you. 10th. Compare your lot with that 
of other people. 1 1th. Don't expect too much from 
human life — a sorry business at the best. 12th. Avoid 
poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), 
music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, 
and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion, not 
ending in active benevolence. 13th. Do //ooc?,^ and en- 
deavour to please everybody of every degree. 14th. 
Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue. 
15th. Make the room where you commonly sit, gay and 
pleasant. 16th. Struggle by little and little against 
idleness. 17th. Don't be too severe upon yourself , or 
underrate yourself, but do yourself justice. 18th. 
Keep good blazing fires. 19th. Be firm and constant 
in the exercise of rational religion. 20th. Believe me, 
dear Lady Georgiana, 

Very truly yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

In the autumn of 1820, Sydney Smith was again a 
visitor at Sedgley Hall, near Manchester, and took 
the opportunity, according to his own statement, of 
studying the field of Peterloo. Earl Grey's son-in- 
law, Mr. Lambton, M.P., wrote early in October, pro- 
posing to pay a flying visit to Foston, but when the 

* The italics are of course Sydney Smith's, and are rendered the 
more significant by the fact that, in looking through several hun- 
dred autograph letters, the above is almost the only instance of their 
usage which I have found. — S. J. R. 



224 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

letter arrived tlie rector was already the guest of Sir 
George Phillips, and from there he despatched the 
following reply : — 

[xxiii.] Philippi, Manchester, October, 1820. 

My deae Sir, — I left Foston on the 27th, with my 
family, on a visit to Marcus Tullius Phillips, from 
whence I write thanking you for your kindness in pro- 
posing that Lady Louisa and yourself should pay us a 
visit at Foston, and assuring you that it would have 
given Mrs. Sydney and myself the greatest pleasure to 
have seen you. * * * I was glad to extort from Lord 
Grey a confession that the climate of Devonshire is 
superior to t-hat of Northumberland, and that Lady 
Grey was better. I now consider that my prediction 
to Lady Grey is in a train of being accomplished — that 
she will live till past eighty, and die intensely fond of 
cribbage and piquette. Everything here is prosperous 
beyond example. Phillips doubles his capital twice a 
week ; we talk much of cotton, more of the fine arts, 
as he has lately returned from Italy, and purchased 
some pictures which were sent out from Piccadilly on 
purpose to intercept him. If Lady Louisa wants any- 
thing in the calico line — happy to serve her. 
Yours, my dear Sir, 

Most truly, 

SydiXev Smith. 

J. G. Lambton, Esq., M.P. 

Another of his friends, Mr. Davenport of Oapesthorne, 
hearing that he was in Manchester, wrote to urge him 
to pay him a visit on leaving Sedgley, and in reply he 
gives an amusing account of the reasons which pre- 
vented him accepting the invitation. 



OF THE REV, SYDNEY SMITH. 225 

[xxiv.] Foston, Nov. 8th, 1820. 

Dear Davenport, — Your letter dated tlio 5th fol- 
lowed me here, where I arrived on the 4th, havmg left 
Mrs. Sydney and my family at Sedgley, who do not 
return till the 14th, or thereabouts. I should have 
had great pleasure in spending a day with you at 
Phillips'. I am much pleased with the kindness of 
Mrs. Davenport in inviting us to Capesthorne, and I 
should have liked very much to have gone there, but 
human life is full of tedious and prosaic diflBculties, 
which are felt, but cannot be stated. For instance, 
we come down to the Phillips' for a certain time every 
two years, bag and baggage, including this year, among 
other articles, a large, bouncing girl of thirteen, 
between nursery and parlour, and a little boy with a 
sore ear ; to bring such a party into Capesthorne would 
have been an outrage against every law, human and 
divine ; to have converted Philippi into a depot for our 
heavy baggage, while we were absent ourselves, would 
not have been pretty behaviour — so that we had no 
alternative. As for the Queen, my only fear was that 
they would be candid, and stop the Bill. It has now 
pleased Divine Providence to give them up to our 
hands, and we shall smite them with the edge of the 
sword. 

Ever very truly yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

Jeffrey had often clamoured for his presence in the 
north, but hitherto, with the exception of a flying visit 
in 1811, he had not been in Edinburgh since 1803. 
His friends in Scotland understood the reason of his 
absence, and knew that it arose from poverty and not 

Q 



226 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

apathy. He had laughingly promised Jeffrey, so far 
back as the struggling years of his London life, that if 
ever the portion of goods which fell to his share should 
outstrip his immediate tieeds, he would hasten to renew 
his acquaintance with Edinburgh and its genial citizens. 
He was now in a position to redeem his pledge, and 
his gratification was enhanced by his ability to take 
his wife and children with him. Setting out in 
November, they broke the journey in going at Howick, 
where they spent a few most agreeable days with Lord 
Grey, and in returning Sydney halted at Dunbar, in 
order to visit Lord Lauderdale, and then went forward 
to Lambton Castle, where he was the guest of Mr. 
J. G. Lambton, M.P. In his own graphic and inimit- 
able wa}'- he describes the changes which had come 
over the appearance and life of Edinburgh, since the 
days he had spent there as tutor to Michael Beach. 
" I found a noble passage into the town, and new since 
my time ; two beautiful English chapels, two of the 
handsomest library-rooms in Great Britain, and a 
wonderful increase of shoes and stockings, streets and 
houses. When I lived there very few maids had shoes 
and stockings, but plodded about the house with feet 
as big as a family Bible, and legs as large as port- 
manteaus. I stayed with Jeffrey. My time was spent 
with the Whig leaders of the Scotch Bar, a set of very 
honest, clever men, each possessing thirty-two different 
sorts of wine. My old friends were glad to see me ; 
some had turned Methodists, some had lost their teeth, 
some had grown very fat, some were dying, and, alas ! 
alas ! many were dead ; but the world is a coarse 
enough place, so I talked away, comforted some, praised 
others, kissed some old ladies, and passed a very 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 227 

riotous week." ^ Several of tlie most distinguished of 
Sydney Smith's Edinburgh friends had but recently 
passed away when he thus renewed his acquaintance 
with the society of the Scottish capital in 1820. 
Francis Horner and Henry Erskine died in 1817, Dr. 
John Gordon in 1818, and Lord Webb Seymour and 
his bosom friend. Professor John Playfair, in 1819. 
The loss of these five men, whom Lord Cockburn 
calls " the delight and pride of the place," "- threw 
a gloom over the most cultivated circles in Edin- 
burgh, and diminished the social attractions of the 
city. 

When Sydney Smith left Edinburgh, in the beginning 
of December, a great meeting organized by the Whigs, 
in order to call attention to the political condition of 
Scotland, and to petition the Crown for the dismissal 
of the Liverpool Cabinet, was rapidly approaching. 
The gathering was held on the 19th December, 1820, 
and it was long afterwards known as the "Pantheon 
Meeting," from the name of the building where the 
agitators met. The speeches and the petition on that 
occasion constituted the first open challenge which the 
Whig party in Scotland had ventured to make to their 
Tory oppressors for nearly a quarter of a century. 
The city was filled with political enthusiasm, and it 
was easy to forecast the success of the demonstration, 
when Sydney Smith was compelled reluctantly to turn 
his face to the south. In the following note to Mr. 
Lambton, written while he was the guest of Lord 
Lauderdale, he gleefully depicts the chagrin of the 
Scotch Tories as they witnessed the fervour which the 

^ Published Correspondence, p. 425. 

"^ "Life of Lord Jeifrey," by Lord Cockburn, vol. i. p. 257. 



228 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Whiof manifesto had kindled in the breasts of the fji-reafc 

majority of the citizens: — 

[xxv.] Dunbar, Dec. 11th, 1820. 

My dear Sir, — I am much obUged to you for your 
kind letter. I shall be at Lambton before dinner on 
Wednesday. The Tories in Edinburgh are in despair. 
Some are taking poisoned meal, others scratching 
themselves to death, others tearing their red hair and 
their high cheek-bones, and calling on the Scotch gods. 
Scabies and Fames. 

Ever yours very truly, 

Sydney Smith. 

J. a. Lambton, Esq., M.P. 

Eight days after this note was written the " Pantheon 
Meeting " took place, and the petition to the king was 
signed by about 17,000 persons. Jeffrey, who had 
spoken with great effect at the meeting, over which 
Moncrieff presided, received a week later the first 
public recognition of his services to Scotland in his 
installation as Lord Rector of the University of 
Glasgow. 

From Dunbar, Sydney Smith proceeded to Lambton 
Castle, the country seat of his friend Mr. Lambton. 
The ardent love of liberty which marked the future 
Lord Durham, his advanced political opinions, and his 
chivalrous interest in the welfare of the people, met 
with a ready response in the breast of his guest, and 
the two men rapidly discovered that they were thinking 
along the same lines, and already had much in common. 
Lambton Castle was one of the first mansions in the 
country to be lighted with gas, and Sydney Smith was 
greatly impressed on his arrival there with the brilliant 
success of the experiment. " Dear lady," writes he to 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 229 

one of his Cliillingham friends, " spend all yonr fortune 
in gas apparatus. Better to eat dry bread by the 
splendour of gas, than to dine on wild beef with wax 
candles. The splendour and glory of Lambton make 
all other houses mean." ^ Such sentiments would have 
been very coldly received at Dunbar, for Lord Lauder- 
dale had conceived the most inveterate prejudice against 
gas, and had even gone so far as to record his " formal 
protest" upon the introduction of the first Gas Bill 
into Parliament.* The noble lord believed that multi- 
tudes would lose their money by mad speculations, and 
that a " most important branch of trade, our whale 
fisheries, would be ruined." Sydney Smith, on the 
contrary, had no such fears, but at once welcomed the 
new discovery as a great addition to the comfort of 
mankind ; and as he always had his own sitting-room 
" lighted up like a town after a great naval victory," 
he was glad to know of a less costly and troublesome 
method of illumination than that afforded by a cluster 
of wax candles. 

At the close of 1820 he was back once more at 
Foston, and cherished the pleasing expectation — at 
least if we are to believe his own statement — that the 
rest of his life was destined to be spent in that rural 
retreat. 

Fresh from the political excitement of Edinburgh 
and the society of kindred spirits there, Foston, with 
its scattered cottages and lowly church, must have 
looked exceedingly quiet to Sydney Smith as he 
hastened once more in the waning December afternoon, 
along the familiar road which led to the rectory. No 

^ Published Correspondence, p. 426. 

* Walpole's " History of England," vol. i. chap. i. p. 97. 



230 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



man could possibly have been more popular under his 
own roof than he was, and not merely his wife and 
children, but the servants, old and young, were accus- 
tomed to look forward wistfully, on the occasion of his 
visits to the great people of the land, to his return to 
his own fireside. His animated tones and merry laugh 
as he recounted at table the adventures of his journey, 
or bustled to and fro about the house and grounds, 




rOSTON CHURCH. 

{The scene of Sydney Smith's ministry for twenty-two years.) 



inquiring what had happened in his abseuce, seemed 
to infuse new life into the whole household, and to 
make everybody in it more active and cheerful. It 
was, moreover, impossible to mistake the genuine 
gratification with which his humble parishioners 
welcomed him back on Sunday to the church, and saw 
him again installed in his own pulpit. 

Early in the following year Sydney Smith despatched 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 231 

the accompanying letter to a young gentleman of 
fortune, who was wishful to enlighten the readers of 
the Edinburgh lleview as to the true causes of the 
" Peterloo Massacre " ' at Manchester, and who had 
appealed to him to revise his manuscript. This 
request drew forth an exceedingly frank reply, which 
there is no longer any reason to suppress, though, for 
obvious reasons, the name of the gentleman to whom 
it was addressed is still withheld : — 

[xxvi.] 

I hope you will not be angry with me, but I would 
not reduce your manuscript to order for the best living 
in Lord Crewe's gift. I figured to myself a neat 
article that would print to about twelve pages, in a 
clear German text hand, written over by the village 
schoolmaster, with intervals of white paper for inter- 
lineation as broad as gravel walks in a garden. The 
interlineations are so numerous, and the writing 
frequently so illegible, that I would really much sooner 
write ten articles upon the Manchester Massacre than 
reduce your manuscript to lucid order. If it bad been 
a phrase to recast here and there, to shorten a redun- 
dant or expand a dwarfish sentence, I would have 
undertaken it with the greatest pleasure, but in its 
present state there is nobody but Reginald Heber who 
could encounter it. What I Ga7i read is very well 
written in point of style, but much too long for any 
subject. All that people would read about the mur- 
dered weavers would be about eight Edinburgh Bevieiv 
pages of calm and candid observation. 

This criticism seems to have chilled the literary 
^ Manchester, 16th Auoust, 1819. 



232 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

enthusiasm cf tlie young scribe; at all events, the 
article on " Peterloo " never appeared in the pages of 
the Edinburgh Eevieiv. 

The accompanying note is thoroughly characteristic, 
and gives a humorous passing glimpse of his home 
surroundings at the close of 1821. 

[xxvil] Foston, Dec. 1st, 1821. 

My dear Lady Georgiana, — How is Lord Carlisle ? 
Pray do not take it for inattention that I do not call 
oftener, but it is rather too far to walk, and I hate 
riding. Next year I shall set up a gig, and then 1 
shall call at Castle Howard twice a day all the year 
round, like an apothecary. I have just finished Miss 
Aitkin's " Memoirs of Queen Elizabeth," a pretty 
book, which I counsel you to let your daughters read, 
if they have not read it five years ago. I am in low 
spirits about the Malton road. I must go over to 
Malton so often, and it will be so troublesome. All 
my hay-stacks and corn-ricks are blown away by this 
wind, two of my maids are married, and the pole of 
my carriage broken ! These are the sort of things 
which render life so difiicult. 

Yours, dear Lady Georgiana, 

Sydney Smith. 

Though a lover of horses, he had good reason to 
" hate riding," for his falls were frequent, and oc- 
curred with a regularity which was both startling and 
ominous. "I left off riding" — is his own confession — 
" for the good of my parish and the peace of my 
family ; for somehow or other, my horse and I had a 
habit of parting company. On one occasion I found 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 233 

myself suddenly prostrate in the streets of York, 
much to the delight of the Dissenters. Another time 
Calamity flung me over his head into a neighbouring 
parish, as if I had been a shuttlecock, and I felt 
grateful it was not into a neighbouring planet ! " '^ His 
visits to the market-town of Malton were constant 
during the later years of his residence at Foston, and 
they arose chiefly out of his duties as a county 
magistrate on the bench there ; and with such engage- 
ments he permitted nothing to interfere. The gig to 
which he alludes in the letter to Lady Morpeth was 
duly "set up" in the course of the following year, 
and the troubles which he anticipated on the Malton 
road turned out, as the following incident proves, to 
be not entirely imaginary. Some of the farmers and 
their labourers in those days were rather lax in the 
manner in which they allowed the waggons and carts 
under their charge to go along the turnpike roads. 
The horses were often imperfectly harnessed, and fre- 
quently were without reins ; and Sydney Smith, as a 
justice of the peace, always drew up and expostulated 
with the drivers wherever he encountered them pro- 
ceeding in so careless and dangerous a way. If the 
caution thus given was treated with contempt, or the 
offence repeated, the law was quickly enforced, and 
the men or their masters fined. One day, as he was 
returning in his gig from a meeting of magistrates 
at Malton, he overtook, near Kirkham, a half-witted 
fellow called Jack Storey, who was in the employment 
of a farmer there. The man's mental deficiencies were 
unknown to Sydney Smith, and as he was riding in a 

« " Memoir of tlie Rev. Sydney Smith," chap. vii. p. 122. 



234 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

cart and driving without reins, he ordered him to get 
down and walk at the horse's head. Jack, who did 
not at all relish the stranger's sudden assumption of 
authority, was not long in setting it at defiance, for 
hardly were the words uttered ere he growled out in 
reply, " Get down, and walk thee sel' ! " The order 
was repeated still more emphatically ; he was to leave 
the cart instantly, and walk at the horse's head; but 
it was again met with the same clownish response, 
" Get down, and walk thee sel' ! " The cart went 
rumbling along through the dust, and the gig, with 
its now indignant occupant, kept closely at its side. 
Presently the order was again repeated, and still more 
sternly ; but the third time of asking was not more 
effectual than the first, and the same aggravating 
rejoinder was once more insolently hurled back. 
At length, thoroughly exasperated, Sydney Smith 
threatened to lay his whip across his shoidders, where- 
upon Jack, roused to frenzy, roared out, " If thee 
disent get on al stean thee ! " Almost at this moment 
a heap of small stones for mending the road came into 
sight, and no sooner was the cart opposite to them 
than Jack jumped out, and instead of going to the 
horse's head, ran to the stones and began to pelt his 
tormentor with them. He was a good marksman, and 
his vigour, for the moment at least, was unbounded, 
and Sydney Smith received some hard blows, and was 
shrewd enough to see that he was in the way of get- 
ting more. He, accordingly, was obliged to set his 
horse at a gallop, and so escaped ignominiously from 
the scene. It need scarcely be added that Jack's 
hare-brained condition soon became known to the 
rector, and prevented reprisals, and Sydney Smith 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 235 

was forced laughingly fco confess that in one contest, at 
any rate, he had been compelled to retreat ingloriously 
from the field of battle. 

His life during the next two or three years 
glided smoothly along, and, though filled with multi- 
farious work, was devoid — like many of the hap- 
piest periods of existence — of special incident. It 
was " cut up," to use his own expression, " into little 
patches ;" and he was still schoolmaster, farmer, 
doctor, parson, author, justice, &c. Occasionally he 
was accustomed, as already seen, to slip the collar 
which such duties imposed, in order to dip into society, 
or to renew his acquaintance with friends north and 
south. Mackintosh, Brougham, Wishaw, Jeffrey, and 
other men of their stamp were glad to avail themselves 
of the vicinity of Foston to York, to look in at the 
" Rector's Head," where a genial welcome ever awaited 
them, and where they were regaled in a manner which 
made them recall the merry supper-parties of Orchard 
Street, where they were accustomed to gather a dozen 
years before. 

In 1823 his second son, Windham, through the 
influence of Archbishop Harcourt, went to the Charter- 
house, and the same year also witnessed Douglas' tri- 
umph in his election as captain of Westminster School. 
Whilst in town about Windham, Sydney Smith dined 
one day at Rogers', with a distinguished party. 
Moore, who was present, records the fact that he was 
particularly amusing : " His imagination of a duel 
between two doctors, with oil of croton on the tips of 
their fingers, trying to touch each other's lips, was 
highly ludicrous. Have rather held out against Sydney 
Smith hitherto ; but to-day he has conquered me, and 



236 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

I am now his victim in tlie laughing way for life." ' 
The success of Douglas was all the more creditable 
to the lad, as his health was uncertain, and he had 
been compelled to lay aside his studies more than once 
in consequence of serious illness. In the autumn he 
proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, with the ulti- 
mate intention of studying for the law. 

The " Rector's Head " was often a veritable " inn 
of strange meetings," as people of the most opposite 
attainments, tastes, and pursuits not unfrequently 
met within its walls. But the host had the art of 
making all and sundry feel at home. " There is one 
talent," he was accustomed to say, "which I think 
I have to a remarkable degree. There are substances 
in nature called amalgams, whose property is to 
combine incongruous materials ; now I am a moral 
amalgam, and I have a peculiar talent for mixing up 
human materials in society, however repellant their 
natures." ^ 

Amongst other visitors at this period were Lord 
and Lady Grey, who had long been anxious to see 
Foston. Lady Grey, however, with her usual kindli- 
ness, was somewhat apprehensive that the resources 
of the parsonage might be overtaxed if they halted 
with a retinue of servants on their journey from 
Howick to London. Her fears on that score were 
quickly set at rest, for Sydney Smith wrote back 
immediately to express his pleasure at the prospect of 
seeing Lord Grey under his own roof ; and added, 
" We can hold you, heavy baggage and all. The fol- 
lowing was the cavalcade of the Leycesters : five 
horses, three men-servants, two maid-servants, four 

"^ Moore's " Memoirs and Correspondence," vol. iv. p. 53. 
^ "Memoir of Sydney Smith," chap. viii. p. 147. 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 237 

Leycesters, and we had other persons in the house, 
so you need not be afraid." One of the party thus 
referred to, Miss Leycester, still retains some recol- 
lections of her stay at Foston Rectory, and of that 
goodness of heart and charm of manner which ren- 
dered Sydney Smith's company so delightful to his 
guests. The unusual arrangements of the place im- 
pressed and diverted her as a girl not a little, such as 
a very large store-room in the house, which contained 
almost everything that could be wanted by the whole 
village, as they were very far from any shops. His 
thoughtfulness extended even to dumb animals, and 
he did not think it beneath him to promote their com- 
fort; for "I remember," adds Miss Leycester, "that 
there were at Foston pieces of wood joined together 
placed at intervals in the grounds for the cows to 
scratch themselves upon." 

Honours in his " own country " and in his own 
profession now began to fall to his lot, for in 1824 
Sir John Johnstone, then High Sheriff, appointed him 
his chaplain, and in that capacity he preached two 
remarkable sermons of unconventional type — one on 
the lawyer who tempted Christ, and the other on the 
Unjust Judge — in York Minster, before the Judges of 
Assize. 

In the summer of that year he also paid a farewell 
visit to Sir George Phillips at Sedgley Hall, Manchester, 
and from thence he went to the Leycesters of Toft, 
the Stanleys of Alderley, and the Davenports of 
Capesthorne. The Countess of Camperdown states 
that her grandfather, Sir George Phillips " was driven 
away from Sedgley by the smoke of Manchester, owing 
to the rapid increase of the town." He accordingly 
left the neii^hbourhood and settled in Warwickshire, 



288 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



where he built Weston House, Shipston-on-Stour, and 
there Sydney Smith was frequently his visitor. Lady 
Camperdown has vivid recollections of the manner in 
which, in her childhood, her grandfather's guest 
proved himself again and again the friend of three bash- 
ful little maidens, who stood somewhat in awe of him. 
Eventually he won their hearts, and they grew quite 
fond of him, for he was accustomed to chase them 
through the hall, and round the picture-gallery, and 
to enter into their pastimes, more like a frolicsome 
elder brother fresh from school, than a grey -haired and 
dignified old clergyman. The three little girls after- 
wards became respectively, the Countess of Camper- 
down, Lady Carew, and the Countess of Caithness, 
and the eldest of them once more calls Weston House 
her home. 




TOEK MINSTEB. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 239 



CHAPTER X. 

1825—1829. 

Sydney Smith and the Catholic Claims. — Appointed Canon of Bristol 
by Lord Lyndhurst. — Farewell to Foston. 

The year 1825 witnessed a memorable struggle in 
Parliament in connection with a question wliich was 
at last coming rapidly to the front for settlement — 
the long-neglected claims of the Catholics. The con- 
duct of the English in Ireland in the eighteenth century, 
must ever be regarded by ?.ll who believe that no man 
should be subjected to civil incapacities on account of 
religious convictions with feelings of shame and de- 
testation. George III. was violently opposed to all 
concessions to the Catholics, and obstinately refused 
to countenance any effort to repeal those unjust and 
tyrannical statutes which, in previous reigns, had 
imposed civil disabilities on no less than five-sixths of 
his subjects in Ireland. In spite of the obstinacy of 
the king, backed as it was by the ignorant intolerance 
of an unreformed Parliament, and the miserable 
bigotry of an apathetic Church, which reserved what 
zeal it possessed for purposes of obstruction, the first 
quarter of the present century was marked by many 
gallant but unsuccessful endeavours to revoke a code 
of laws which were an insult to Ireland, and a scandal 



240 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

to England. If George III. had been impervious to 
argument, and blind to the signs of the times, no man 
had questioned the sincerity of the old king's motives, 
for it was well known that he unfortunately con- 
scientiously regarded the proposal to grant relief to the 
Catholics as a violation of his coronation oath. Selfish, 
dissolute, and trifling, his successor was a man of a 
different stamp ; and bent on personal gratification 
alone, George IV. turned a deaf ear to the grievances 
of his people, and made no attempt to conceal the 
fact that, Gallio-like, he cared for none of these things. 

Pitt, Grenville, Grattan, Plunkett, and Canning 
attempted one after another to induce Parliament to 
investigate the Catholic claims, but in spite of the 
growing support of the English people, the subject 
was again and again contemptuously dismissed. In 
1825, the Irish, exasperated by the repeated failures 
of the Catholic cause, seemed on the eve of rebellion, 
and the political horizon was darkened by angry and 
threatening clouds. O'Connell, who knew better 
than most men that union is strength, threw himself 
with characteristic ardour into the work of the- 
Catholic Association, and sought by every means in 
his power to knit the people together in indignant 
remonstrance at the common wrong. " Agitate, 
agitate, agitate! " was O'Connell's constant cry, and 
nobody could accuse the great orator of preaching 
what he did not practise. " I always go on repeat- 
insr," was his frank declaration, " until I find what 
I have been saying coming back to me in echoes from 
the people." 

The Catholic Association cherished no visionary or 
revolutionary scheme, but, like the Anti-Corn League 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 2^1 

twenty years later, simply sought a practical measure 
of relief, and one which had been urged upon the 
Legislature by the foremost statesmen of the time, and 
the justice of which was beyond all challenge. In 
1823, the network of the Association had spread itself 
over the wdioie of Ireland, and embraced most of the 
Catholic nobility, gentry, priesthood, and peasantry 
of the sister isle. From that year until its sup- 
pression, the Catholic Association assumed the attri- 
butes of a national Parliament. It held its sessions 
in Dublin, appointed committees, received petitions, 
directed a census of the population to be taken, and 
levied contributions in the shape of a Catholic rent 
upon every parish in the land. Its stirring and im- 
passioned proclamations were placed in the hands of 
the priests, and were read by them to their flocks 
from the altar. Its debates, abounding in fiery de- 
nunciations against the British Government, were 
published in every newspaper, and were thus scattered 
broadcast over the land. The oratory of such men as 
O'Connell and Shiel could not fail to arrest public 
attention, and the whole movement accordingly began 
to assume proportions which filled its supporters with 
enthusiasm and hope, and its foes with alarm and 
dismay. Lord Eldon, on whose judgment as confi- 
dential adviser, the king placed implicit reliance, was 
filled with inveterate hostility to the Catholics, and the 
Tories, from their leader. Lord Liverpool, downwards, 
repeated with dismal unanimity the " No Popery " cry. 
It soon became quite obvious that the demands of 
O'Connell and his followers must be granted, or the 
clamour of the Catholic Association silenced. The 
Tory Government was not prepared for the former 



242 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

alternative, and determined therefore in 1825, to in- 
troduce a Bill to suppress the Catholic Association 
for three years. The measure, which was open to 
the gravest constitutional objections, was strenuously 
resisted, and naturally excited the utmost indigna- 
tion throughout Ireland ; and though it became law, 
the progress of the Catholic cause was accelerated by 
the very means which were taken for its repression. 
Whilst this measure was still under consideration, 
Sir Francis Burdett, taking advantage of the general 
feeling in the Liberal ranks against the tyrannical 
poUcy of the Government, raised the whole question 
of the Catholic disabilities, and carried a motion to go 
into committee to investigate their claims. Eventually, 
after a series of splendid debates, in which many 
waverers were won over to the side of toleration, a 
Bill, which granted a considerable degree of relief, 
was sent up to the Lords. The antipathy of the Court 
to Sir Francis Burdett's proposals was evinced by an 
extraordinary speech which the heir-presumptive, the 
Duke of York, delivered in his place in Parliament, 
and in which he made no secret of his personal inten- 
tions in reference to the question in the event of his 
accession to the throne. Petitions for and against the 
Bill were despatched in hot haste to Westminster, but 
it was thrown out in the Lords on the second reading 
by a majority of forty-eight. 

The author of " Peter Plymley " was no idle spec- 
tator of a struggle in which he had already played 
so important a part, but used whatever influence he 
possessed to further the cause of civil and religious 
liberty. As far back as 1808, when the vast majority 
of the nation held very different opinions, he had had 



OF THE KEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 243 

the courage to declare that the treatment of our 
Catholic fellow- subjects reflected " indelible disgrace 
upon the English character, and explained but too 
clearly the cause of that hatred in which the English 
name has so long been held in Ireland." ' The clergy 
of the English Church, almost to a man, were hostile 
to the Cathohc claims, and clerical gatherings were, 
as a consequence, held in different parts of the country 
in 1825 to petition against Sir Francis Burdett's 
motion. In March a crowded meeting of the clergy 
of Cleveland was held at Thirsk, and on that occasion 
Sydney Smith made his first appearance on a political 
platform. Beginning his speech with the unexpected 
declaration that he had never even attended a public 
political meeting before in his life, he proceeded in 
a genial vein of pleasantry to ridicule the childish 
prophecies of danger which filled the air, and to pro- 
test against the false and mischievous assertions of a 
number of loyal but foolish Churchmen, who seemed to 
imagine, if any conclusion at all could be gathered 
from their language, that the Church of England, in- 
stead of being, as he believed, the " strongest, wisest, 
and best establishment in the world," was the " most 
fainting, sickly, hysterical institution that ever existed 
in it." If the meeting was determined to address 
Parliament on the subject, he ventured to submit a 
petition which, in deference to the opinions of others, 
he had endeavoured to render as moderate and mild 
as possible, requesting the House of Commons to 
inquire whether the opportune moment had not 
arrived for the immediate repeal of the laws which 

' Edinburgh Revietjo, vol. xi. 



244 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

affect the Roman Catholics of Great Britain and 
Ireland. Sydney Smith had been in advance of the 
public opinion of the nation in 1808, when the " Letters 
of Peter Plymley " startled the community ; and in 
1825, when he made his first political speech at the 
" Three Tuns," Thirsk, to help the cause of civil and 
religious liberty, he was still in advance of the public 
opinion of the clergy. His petition received only two 
signatures, those of Archdeacon AVrangham and the 
Rev. William Vernon Harcourt ; and an address of a 
very different character was adopted by an overwhelm- 
ing majority. 

On the 11th of April, a similar meeting of the 
clergy of the East Riding of Yorkshire was held at the 
Tiger Inn, Beverley, for the purpose of petitioning 
Parliament against the .emancipation of the Catho- 
lics; and the Rector of Foston again protested in 
even more emphatic terms against the injustice of 
such a proceeding. " If you go into a parsonage-house 
in the country, Mr. Archdeacon," said he, addressing 
the chair, " you see sometimes a style and fashion of 
furniture which does very well for us, but which has 
had its day in London. It is seen in London no more; 
it is banished to the provinces ; from the gentle- 
men's houses of the provinces these pieces of furniture, 
as soon as they are discovered to be unfashionable, 
descend to the farm-houses, then to cottages, then to 
the faggot-heap, then to the dung-hill. As it is with 
furniture, so it is with arguments. I hear at country 
meetings many arguments against the Catholics which 
are never heard in London ; their London existence is 
over — they are only to be met with in the provinces, 
and there they are fast hastening down, with clumsy 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 245 

chairs and ill-fashioned sofas, to another order of men. 
But, sir, as they are not yet gone where I am sure 
they are going, I shall endeavour to point out their 
defects, and to accelerate their descent." In spite, 
however, of argument, statistics, common sense, and 
wit, his words were of no avail, and at the close of 
the meeting he was in a minority of one. Even his 
curate opposed him, and stood there " breathing war 
and vengeance on the Vatican." The curate, it appears, 
had felt some doubt about the propriety of voting 
against his rector, but he was met by the assurance 
that he need fear no animosity, but might expect 
instead, as a tribute to his courage, increased good- 
will and respect. " I assured him that nothing would 
give me more pain than to think I had prevented 
in any man the free assertion of honest opinions." 
A half-humorous, half-pathetic incident took place in 
connection with the meeting, which Sydney Smith 
thus records : " A poor clergyman whispered to me, 
that he was quite of my way of thinking, but had nine 
children. I begged he would remain a Protestant." 
The following amusing note was written to Mr. 
Davenport, M.P., a few days after the Beverley 
meeting. 

[xxvin.J Foston, April 20tli, 1825. 

My dear Sir, — In return for my speech at the 
" Tiger " which I sent you last week, pray frank the 
enclosed letter for me. I slept at the Tiger Inn 
the nisfht before, and asked the servants of the inn 
what they thought of the Catholics and Protestants. I 
must inform you of the result. The chambermaid 
was decidedly for the Church of England. Boots was 



246 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

for the Catliolics. The waiter said he had often (God 
forgive him) wished them both confounded together. 
I am, dear sir, 

Very truly yours, 

Sydney Smith. 
D. Davenport, Esq., M.P., 
28, Lower Brook Street, London. 

Shortly before the question of Catholic emancipation 
had reached this phase, the Duke of Devonshire, at 
the instance of the Earl of Carlisle, gave the Rector 
of Foston the family living of Londesborough to hold 
until his nephew, the Hon. W. G. Howard (the present 
Lord Carlisle), came of age. The living, which was a 
valuable one, was within driving distance of Foston, 
and it was held by Sydney Smith until 1832. Londes- 
borough is a pretty village, sheltered by lofty trees, 
and built high up on the western edge of the breezy 
wolds of the East Riding. From the rising ground 
beyond the church there is a splendid view of the vast 
and cultivated plain which lies below, and in one 
direction the Humber may be traced against the dark 
background of the Lincolnshire hills ; whilst in an 
opposite direction, but much nearer at hand, the stately 
towers of York Minster gladden the eye. Londes- 
borough has a quaint little hospital or almshouse, 
founded and endowed two hundred years ago, for twelve 
poor people, by the first Earl and Countess of Bur- 
lington, who at that time lived in an ancient mansion 
close by, of which the only memorial now is a broken 
flight of broad and ornamental steps which rise above 
the uneven turf, under which all else that remains of 
Londesborough Hall lies buried. The ancient family 
of the Cliffords had lived at Londesborough for 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 247 

generations before one of their number built the 
hospital. On the chancel-fioor of the church there is 
an inscription which links the name of John, Lord 
Clifford, who was slain at the battle of Towton, and 
upon whom Shakespeare hurls deserved odium as 
" bloody ClifFord," and his son Henry, the noble-hearted 
" shepherd lad," the charm of whose romantic story 
has been heightened by the genius of Wordsworth. 
The third Lord Burlington, the friend of Alexander 
Pope, is also buried in the church, and in his day 
many celebrated men visited Londesborough, including 
Pope and Garrick. At the death of the third Earl in 
1753, in default of male issue, Londesborough bacame 
the property of the fourth Duke of Devonshire, who 
had married a few years previously the heiress of 
the house of Clifford. 

Sydney Smith never lived at Londesborough, but 
was accustomed to drive over two or three times 
a year from Foston. He was, however, very effi- 
ciently represented by the curate in charge, a Mr. 
Mayelstone, who resided at the rectory, and whose 
name suggests what is probably the only authentic 
anecdote of Sydney Smith at Londesborough. On 
one of his few visits to the place he encountered a 
young rustic on the village street who, startled by the 
apparition of a stranger in broadcloth, unconsciously 
halted, and gave him the full benefit of an uncompro- 
mising stare. "Where are you going, my boy?" 
inquired the rector in his blandest tones. " To't 
Sunday-school," answered the lad, with his ej^es still 
fixed upon him. " Who do you think I am?" " I 
dun' noa." "Am I Mr. Mayelstone?" The answer 
came with ill-concealed contempt. "Noa!" "Am 



248 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

I Mr. Mayelstone's mother !" " Noa ! ! " " What 
do you think I am, then ? " The stony stare dis- 
appeared in a merry twinkle as the boy replied, " I 
think you're maist like one of them chaps that gangs 
aboot wi' knives and razors ! " The rector was de- 
lighted with the shrewd retort, and pulled out half-a- 
crown in payment on the spot. As for the lad, his 
words were not as far from the truth as at first sight 
appears, and it was undoubtedly a fortunate thing 
for society that the polished knives and razors of 
Sydney Smith's trenchant satire and incisive wit were 
employed not against, but in the interests of the 
English people. Possibly he was thinking of this 
Londesborough incident, when long afterwards he 
declared, " The whole of my life has passed like a 
razor — in hot water or a scrape." As the rector seldom 
appeared in Londesborough, except to preach an occa- 
sional sermon, few traces of his presence remain in 
the place, and the parish registers contain no record 
concerning him. It is related, however, apparently 
on good authority, that one Sunday he announced his 
subject, in a somewhat slipshod fashion, as " Putting 
one's hand to the plough and looking back," and then 
calmly referred the congregation to one of the Epistles 
for his text. There is another tradition of Sydney 
Smith which rests on good authority, and which illus- 
trates his occasional absent-mindedness not only when 
in church, but also when on his way to it. One of his 
intimate friends in the neighbourhood of Heslington 
used to relate that he once arrived late at Naburn 
Church, near York, where he had arranged to take the 
service. He excused himself by saying to the anxious 
officials who greeted him with reproachful glances on 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 249 

his tardy arrival, tliat he had started from home on his 
pony, but dismounting had thrown the bridle over 
his arm and walked on in front of the animal, conning 
over his sermon. Meanwhile, the pony had taken ad- 
vantage of the situation, and had slipped the head-gear 
over its ears, and quietly trotted home, so that when 
the astonished rector turned round, he found that he 
had only the bridle behind him ! He added, in sly 
allusion to the Yorkshire adage, " Give a tyke a bridle, 
and he will soon have ahorse," that he was not enough 
of a Yorkshire man yet to get himself a s^teed in time, and 
therefore had been compelled to walk the rest of the 
way. It was his custom, both at Foston and Londes- 
borough, to hasten out of the vestry as soon as the 
service was over, to talk with the farmers about the 
health of their families, or the prospect of their crops. 
The Rev. William Vernon Harcourt, son of the late 
Archbishop of York, and father of the present Secre- 
tary of State, was one of Sydney Smith's Yorkshire 
friends, and a brother clergyman with whom he had 
much in common. Canon Harcourt was moreover one 
of two clergymen who ventured to sign Sydney Smith's 
petition to Parliament, in 1825, in favour of Catholic 
emancipation, and his attitude then was only in 
keeping with the liberality and courage which marked 
his treatment of other great questions of the day. On 
the occasion of his friend's marriage, the Rector of 
Foston wrote some exceedingly witty lines, which 
hitherto have remained unpublished, and which are 
now transcribed by kind permission of Sir William 
Yernon Harcourt, M.P. It is scarcely necessary to 
add that Canon Harcourt was a distinguished geologist ; 
his ardent devotion to science led Sydney Smith, in 



250 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

inviting him, a few years later to visit Combe-Florey, 
to urge as an additional attraction, " We are on the 
old red sandstone." 
[xxix.] 

ON MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM HARCOURT 
PASSING THEIR HONEYMOON AT THE 
LAKES. 

'Mid rocks and ringlets, specimens and sighs, 
On wings of rapture every moment flies. 
He views Matilda, lovely in her prime. 
Then finds sulphuric acid mix'd with lime ! 
Guards from her lovely face the solar ray, 
And fills his pockets with alluvial clay. 
Science and Love distract his tortured heart. 
Now flints, now fondness; take the larger part, 
And now he breaks a stone, now feels a dart. 

Sydney Smith. 

A friendship which he had formed with Mr. and 
Mrs. Beilby Thompson — afterwards Lord and Lady 
Wenlock ^ — brightened the closing years of Sydney 
Smith's residence in Yorkshire, and proved a source of 
gratification throughout the remainder of his life. 
Unfortunately for him, Escrick Park was not so 
accessible from Foston as Castle Howard, but lay more 
than fifteen miles away; nevertheless, he was an 
occasional visitor there, and his new friends w^ere 

^ The first Lord Wenlock, Paul Beill»y Lawley, was a younger 
son of Sir Robert Lawley, of Canwell, in Staffordshire. He assumed 
the surnaine of his mother on the death of his uncle, Richard 
Thompson, Esq., of Escrick Park, York, to whose fortune and 
estates he succeeded. His wile — to whom several very cordial 
letters in the published correspondence of Sydney Smith are 
addressed — was the daughter of Richard, Lord Braybrooke. Lady 
Wenlock died in 1868 j her husband sixteen years earlier. 



OF THE KEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 251 

always delighted to see the familiar gig drive up to 
their door. The intimacy between Sydney Smith and 
his friends at Escrick was deepened by the delicate 
and respectful sympathy evinced by the latter on the 
death of Douglas. Whilst Lord and Lady Wenlock 
enjoyed as much as any one the high spirits and exhu- 
berant fun which marked the ordinary appearances of 
Sydney Smith in society, and concerning which so 
much has already been said and written, they never 
failed to recognize the generous and lofty qualities of 
his character, and the deep reverence for the good, the 
beautiful, and the true, which always curbed his 
mirth, and rendered his conversation in quiet hours 
and serious moods eminently helpful and suggestive 
to his friends. Towards the close of his life when, as 
he expressed it, he lived with one leg in Combe-Florey 
and the other in London, few things pleased him 
better than to meet his friends from Castle Howard or 
Escrick in town, and to renew in intercourse with 
them his many pleasant recollections of his Yorkshire 
days. The Hon. Mrs. J. Stuart Wortley, daughter of 
Lord Wenlock, was a young girl when he left Foston, 
but she met him frequently in London when he was 
Canon of St. Paul's, and as the child of his valued 
friends at Escrick as well as on personal grounds, was 
always received by him with even more than his usual 
kindness. It is interesting to be able to place on 
record in these pages the impression created on the 
mind of one so well qualified by intimate acquaintance 
to speak on such a subject as the nature of Sydney 
Smith's influence, as Mrs. Stuart Wortley : — 

[xxx.] 

I was still too young when the Kev. Sydney Smith 



252 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

removed from Yorkshire to remember the Foston days, 
but I was continually hearing of them, and well knew 
how he was missed. My dear parents were never 
weary of recalling the brilliant days when he was with 
them, when they " ached with laughing " at the wealth 
of fun and nonsense which he poured forth when he 
was in high spirits. They were, however, not less 
fond of dwelling on the fact that in their view this 
joyousness never impaired his excellence as a clergy- 
man, or infringed on his perfect charity and gentleness 
to all mankind. I like to give this as their testimony 
because their standard was an especially high one. 
They saw him, moreover, both in sorrow and in joy, 
and I have heard my mother speak of how she visited 
them at the time of the death of their eldest son. 

Comparing my own personal recollections with their 
accounts, I incline to the belief that Sydney Smith 
never quite recovered the loss of Douglas, or in his 
London days ever quite equalled the abundant hilarity 
of his earlier years. When I now recall his conversa- 
tion, I see what he meant when in one of his published 
lectures at the Royal Institution, he mentions surprise 
as the principal element in wit. No mortal could 
conceive the unexpected turns of his fancy. His talk 
was like a stream of fireworks, brilliant, incessant, and 
perfectly harmless. He kept, for instance, a whole 
party, of which I was one, laughing at his droll way of 
announcing the appointment of Dr. Vowler Short to 
the Bishopric of Sodor and Man. " Vowler Short is 
to be Sodor and Man. Mrs. Vowler Short and all the 
little Shorts are now trymg on short cassocks, and 
saying, ' This is what papa will wear when he is Sodor 
and Man ! ' " His manner was so funny and yet so kind 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 253 

that it never occurred to any one to think the slightest 
disrespect could be inferred, but the antithesis of the 
double names amused him, and he proceeded to twist 
them about very comically. I wish anything could 
reproduce his talk in a manner which would reveal all 
tlie depth of his feeling, as well as the brightness of 
his fancy ; but it is quite indescribable. 

His tenderness and kindness left a very lasting 
impression upon me ; he certainly had a marvellously 
■deep well of human sympathy in his heart. 

Jane Stuart Wortley. 

16, Clarges Street, Piccadilly, W. 
31st May, 1884. 

The year 1826 opened in England with a com- 
mercial panic of almost unparalleled severity, — some 
seventy banks suspended payment and were closed, 
and Sydney Smith declared that henceforth he should 
keep his money in a hole in his garden ! The causes 
of the disaster cannot be traced in these pages ; it is 
enough to chronicle the fact, and to recall the wide- 
spread privation and discontent which the famine-price 
of bread, and the scarcity of water, produced amongst 
the poor during that tropical summer. In the manu- 
facturing districts the starving masses, mistaking the 
introduction of machinery for the cause of their dis- 
tress, destroyed the power-looms. In Blackburn, on one 
Sunday alone a thousand power-looms were wrecked 
by an infuriated mob ; and from Bradford, Manchester, 
Liverpool, Hull, Norwich, and Bethnal Green, news of 
riots and disturbances were continually coming to 
hand. A general election took place in the course of 
the summer, and the Corn Laws and the Catholic 



254 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

emancipation were the chief questions of the hour, 
whilst the abolition of slavery was also earnestly 
demanded by an influential section of the nation. 

The anti-Catholic feeling in the country seemed to 
revive under the pressure of the times, and Lord John 
Russell, Lord Howick, Henry Brougham, and other 
prominent Whigs failed at first to secure seats in the 
new House of Commons. Sydney Smith seized the 
occasion of the general election to issue his famous 
" Letter to the Electors upon the Catholic Question," 
and as a political pamphlet it went far and wide, and 
its noble plea for justice made a deep impression on 
the public mind. He urged the electors to vote for 
*' a free altar," and advised them to have nothing to 
do with those " modern chains and prisons for a 
man's faith under the name of disqualifications and 
incapacities, which are only the cruelty and tyranny of 
a more civilized age." He maintained that civil offices 
should be open to all loyal subjects, whatever their 
religious convictions might be, and for himself was 
not at all afraid of a Roman Catholic alderman or a 
Wesleyan justice of the peace. He pleaded that there 
might be no longer any " tyranny in belief, but an 
open road to Heaven, and no human insolence hallowed 
by the name of God." The " Letter to the Electors" 
bristles with facts and arguments^ and it proved an 
armoury from which many resolute champions of 
toleration drew fresh weapons of attack. The humour 
of Sydney Smith is perhaps less conspicuous in this 
manifesto than usual, but the plea advanced for the de- 
lay of concessions is demolished by a peculiarly happy 
bit of satire : " Every man in trade must have ex- 
perienced the difficulty of getting in a bill from an un- 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 255 

willing paymaster. If you call in the morning, the 
gentleman is not up ; if in the middle of the day, he 
is out ; if in the evening, there is company. If you ask 
mildly, you are indifferent to the time of payment ; if 
you press, you are impertinent. No time and no man- 
ner can render such a message agreeable. So it is with 
the poor Catholics ; their message is so disagreeable 
that their time and manner can never be rio-ht." 

o 

In the course of the summer, Macaulay was in York, 
at the Assizes, and spent a Sunday at Foston, and in a 
letter to his father (dated July 26th, 1826) he describes 
his impressions of the place : — " On Saturday, I went 
to Sydney Smith's. His parish lies three or four miles 
out of any frequented road. He is, however, most 
pleasantly situated. ' Fifteen years ago,' said he to 
me as I ahghted at the gate of his shrubbery, ' I was 
taken up in Piccadilly and set down here. There was 
no house, and no garden ; nothing but a bare field.' One 
service this eccentric divine has certainly rendered to 
the Church. He has built the very neatest, most com- 
modious, and most appropriate rectory that I ever saw. 
All its decorations are in a peculiarly clerical style; 
grave, simple, and gothic. * * * We passed an ex- 
tremely pleasant evening, had a very good dinner, and 
many amusing anecdotes. After breakfast next morn- 
ing, I walked to church with Sydney Smith. The edi- 
fice is not at all in keeping with the rectory. It is a 
miserable little hovel with a wooden belfry. It was, 
however, well filled, and with decent people, who seemed 
to take very much to their pastor. * * * Sydney Smith 
brought me to York on Monday morning in time for 
the stage-coach which runs to Skipton. We parted 
with many assurances of good-will. I have really taken 



256 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

a great liking to him. He is full of wit, liumour, and 
shrewdness. He is not one of those show-talkers who 
reserve all their good things for special occasions. It 
seems to be his greatest luxury to keep his wife and 
daughters laughing for two or three hours every 
day." ' 

The same year Sydney Smith paid a visit to Paris, a 
city which he had often desired to see, and there he 
renewed his acquaintance with Prince Tallyrand, and 
was introduced by Lord Holland, who was in the 
French capital at the same time, to a number of dis- 
tinguished statesmen and literary men. The universal 
civility of the French, the taste and ingenuity displayed 
in their shops, their propensity for explaining things 
which do not require explanation, and their mastery of 
the art of furnishing, were all duly noticed. The 
profusion of mirrors in their rooms comes in for a 
word of praise, and the brilliant aspect which they give 
to large apartments is also mentioned. " I remember 
entering a room with glass all round it, and saw 
myself reflected on every side. I took it for a meeting 
of the clergy, and was delighted of course." ^ Soon 
after his return from Paris, his friends Wishaw and 
Jeffrey came for a short time to Foston, and during 
their stay he realized, according to his own statement, 
his idea of good society. The hot weather of 1826 
tried him not a Httle, though his health, as a rule, was 
exceedingly good ; probably the cause of his physical 
distress during the sultry months of that oppressive 

3 " Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay," by his nephew, George Otto 
Trevelyan, M.P., vol. i. chap, iii, p. 147. 

* " Memoir of Sydney Smith," chap. xi. p. 243. 



OF TEE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 257 

summer, is to be found in the naive confession whicli 
he made, when it was running its course, in a letter to 
One of his correspondents, " I am, you know, of the 
family of Falstaff."^ 

In February 1827, Lord Liverpool was struck with 
paralysis, and it was soon apparent that his political 
career was absolutely at an end. He had been called 
to the head of affairs upon the assassination of Spencer 
Perceval in 1812, and his tenure of power forms one of 
the darkest and most discreditable epochs in modern 
history. Lord Liverpool was succeeded by the Right 
Hon. George Canning, who had been Foreign Secretary 
since the suicide of Castlereagh in 1822. Canning had 
long been in favour of Catholic emancipation, and so 
far back as 1812 he had supported Grattan's motion 
on the subject. The friends of religious liberty, there- 
fore, hailed his accession to power, and their satisfaction 
was increased when it was immediately followed by 
the retirement of Lord Eldon. The withdrawal of 
the Lord Chancellor was followed by the resignation 
of the Duke of Wellington, Mr. (afterwards Sir Robert) 
Peel, and four other members of the late Cabinet. 

The attitude of the "no-surrender" Tories towards 
the new Premier was one of undisguised hostility, 
and Canning could never have held his own against 
them but for the support of a section of the Whigs. 
Lord Lansdowne and Mr. Tierney entered the Cabi- 
net, and Brougham, Burdett, and others supported 
the Ministry in the House of Commons. Although 
in favour of Catholic emancipation. Canning was 
opposed to the repeal of the Test Act, and had little 
sympathy with the gathering cry in the country for 
^ Published Correspondence, p. 456. 

S 



258 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Parliamentary reform. Lord Grey accordingly held 
aloof from liim, and the position of his Government 
was still further imperilled by the strength of ultra-Tory 
sentiments in the House of Lords. Probably Albany 
Fonblanque expressed the general opinion of the Whigs 
on Canning's accession to power with tolerable exact- 
ness, when he declared himself glad to admit that, in 
" the substitution of Canning's rule for that of his late 
bigoted and despised colleagues, a comparative benefit 
of great value is obtained by the nation. He is not all 
that we wish ; they were all that we hate."^ Sir John 
Copley was raised to the woolsack in place of Lord 
Eldon, and entered the House of Lords as Baron 
Lyndhurst. The new administration was of singularly 
brief duration, for Canning had scarcely reached the 
pinnacle of his ambition when, to the great sorrow of 
the nation, death surprised him in August, 1827. A 
feeling akin to consternation passed over friends and 
foes alike when it became known that a minister, whose 
courage, eloquence, and ability had produced a deep 
impression on the public mind, had been struck down 
by death at the very moment when a great career 
seemed dawning upon him. His administration had 
not lasted four months when Canning expired on the 
8th of August at the Duke of Devonshire's house at 
Chiswick, in the " very room in which Fox had died 
twenty years before." A few days later he was laid, 
amid every demonstration of respect, in an honoured 
grave, close to Pitt and Fox, in Westminster Abbey. 
In spite of the shortcomings of the " last of the 
rhetoricians," as Canning was styled by a distinguished 

* " England under Seven Administrations," vol. i p. 16. 
' " Walpole's History of England," vol. ii. chap. x. j). 459. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 269 

contemporary, liis death was deplored by every op- 
pressed race in Europe, for his foreign policy had made 
his name abroad synonymous with liberty itself. 

Although the death of Canning robbed the friends 
of Catholic emancipation of the hope of immediate 
repeal, nothing could arrest the steady and triumphant 
progress of the movement, and all who were not 
blinded by fanaticism clearly perceived that the claims 
of justice must shortly prevail. Sydney Smith's last 
contribution to the pages of the Edinburgh Revieiu, by 
a happy though undesigned coincidence, was on the 
subject of the Catholic claims, and with a final protest 
in the interests of civil and religious liberty, his long 
and honourable connection with periodical literature 
ceased. The article, which appeared in March, 1827, 
concludes with a few words of advice addressed to the 
different opponents of the Catholic question : " To the 
No-Popery Fool. — You are made use of by men who 
laugh at you, and despise you for your folly and 
ignorance ; and who, the moment it suits their purpose, 
will consent to emancipation of the Catholics, and leave 
you to roar and bellow ' No popery ! ' to vacancy and 
the moon. To the No-Popery Bogue. — A shameful 
and scandalous game to sport with the serious in- 
terests of the country in order to gain some increase 
of pubHc power. To the honest No-Popery People. — 
We respect you very sincerely, but are astonished at 
your existence. To the Base. — Sweet children of turpi- 
tude, beware ! the old anti-popery people are fast 
perishing away. Take heed that you are not sur- 
prised by an emancipating king, or an emancipating 
administration. Leave a locus pmnitentice ! prepare a 
place for retreat ; get ready your equivocations and 



260 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

denials. The dreadful day may yet come, when 
liberality may lead to place and power. We under- 
stand these matters here. It is safest to be moderately 
base, to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready 
for what is generous, good, and just when anything is 
to be gained by virtue. To the Catholics. — Wait. Do 
not add to your miseries by a mad and desperate 
rebellion. Persevere in civil exertions, and concede 
all you can concede. All great alterations in human 
affairs are produced by compromise." ^ 

The danger of a mad and desperate rebellion in 
Ireland was the reverse of a remote contingency 
when these closing words were written. Exaspe- 
rated beyond endurance by the unrelieved misery 
of their condition, and by the cool insolence with 
which arguments and appeals alike had been set 
aside, the Irish people were ripe for revolution, and 
the popular leader 0' Conn ell was dangerous to 
the public peace, not chiefly throagh his splendid ora- 
torical gifts, but because of the sense of outraged 
justice which helped to wing his words, and caused 
them to awaken responsive echoes in the hearts of 
the impressionable crowds which flocked around him 
wherever he went. Sydney Smith saw clearly, in 
1827, that, repugnant though the Catholic claims 
might be to George IV. and his advisers, no Govern- 
ment could much longer exist in this country, how- 
ever tyrannical, which did not deal with the question 
on the lines marked out by policy and prudence, as 
well as justice and mercy ; and it was because he per- 
ceived the issue so distinctly that his last words to the 

' Edinhurgli Review, vol. xlv. p. 445. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 261 

people of Ireland on tlie subject were to stay tbeir 
hand and await the issue of events, and the swift and 
peaceful triumph of a cause which had always been 
righteous, and had at length grown irresistible. In a 
private letter to a friend in the course of the same 
year, he thus depicts the aspect of political affairs : 
" Jesuits abroad— Turks in Greece — No-poperists in 
England — A. panting to burn B. ; B. fuming to roast 
C. ; C. miserable that he cannot reduce D. to ashes ; 
D. consigning to eternal perdition the three first 
letters of the alphabet." ^ 

On the death of Canning the country dreaded the 
immediate return to power of Tories trained in the 
narrow school of Lords Eldon and Liverpool ; the 
King, however, summoned Lord Goderich, and en- 
trusted him with the difficult task of constructing a 
new administration. Lord Lansdowne and other in- 
fluential Whigs determined to accept office under 
Canning's successor, but they were speedily dis- 
heartened in their allegiance by the King's refusal to 
acknowledge by Cabinet rank the brilliant services of 
Lord Holland. Lord Goderich passed the autumn in 
futile endeavours to reconcile the differences in his 
Cabinet, and the year ended with the ignominious 
downfall of the new administration ; and on the 8th 
of January, 1828, the Duke of Wellington was called 
to the head of affairs. The Coalition Ministry of Lord 
Goderich did not, however, disappear into the gulf of 
Toryism, without some recognition, on the part of the 
more liberal-minded members of it, of the public 
services of Sydney Smith. 

* Published Correspondence, p. 459. 



262 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Lord Lyndhurst, who, though a pohtical anta- 
gonist, was a personal friend, nominated the Rector 
of Foston to a vacant stall at Bristol ; and probably 
the influence in the Cabinet of his old and attached 
friend Lord Lansdowne, who admired Sydney Smith 
both on public and private grounds, had also much 
to do with the promotion which he thus received. 
Sydney Smith was on intimate terms with Lord 
Lyndhurst; and soon after the latter became Lord 
Chancellor, he was present at a dinner-party at 
his house, when the conversation turned to the 
custom in India of widows burning themselves on 
their husband's funeral pyre. For the sake of argu- 
ment, he began to defend the practice, and asserted 
that no wife who truly loved her husband could 
wish to survive him. " But if Lord Lyndhurst 
were to die, you would be sorry that Lady Lynd- 
hurst should burn herself ? " was the sudden and 
embarrassing question of one of the guests. " Lady 
Lyndhurst," came the deliberate reply, " would, no 
doubt, as an affectionate wife, consider it her duty to 
burn herself, but it would be our duty to put her out ; 
and, as the wife of the Lord Chancellor, Lady Lynd- 
hurst should not be put out like an ordinary widow. 
It should be a state affair. First, a procession of the 
judges, then of the lawyers." " But praj^, Mr. Smith, 
where are the clergy ? " Instantly came the sly 
response, " All gone to congratulate the new Lord 
Chancellor!" 

The year 1828 opened eventfully to Sydney Smith, 
for, on the 1st of January, his youngest daughter, 
Emily, was married; and a few days later a letter 
arrived at the rectory, informing him that he had been 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 263 

made a Canon of Bristol. It was a sad day to the 
villagers of Foston when their friend and helper, 
" Miss Emily " went away ; and there are still two or 
three old folks in the locality of her early home who 
recall with an aifection which the lapse of more than 
half a; century has^not dimmed, the kindliness and sym- 
pathy with which the young girl laboured for their 
good. Beautiful, gentle, and accomplished, Emily 
Smith was greatly beloved by those who knew her, 
and throughout a long life she endeared herself to 
all around her, and rich and poor alike continually 
felt the attraction of her sunny and benevolent 
nature. Her husband was Mr. Nathaniel Hibbert, a 
young barrister, and the son and heir of George 
Hibbert, Esq., of Munden House, Watford, Herts. 
After an honourable career at the Bar, Mr. Hibbert 
succeeded in 1841 to the family estate, and the last 
twenty years of his life were spent a:t his charming seat 
amid the ordinary avocations which mark the pleasant 
life of an active and scholarly country gentleman. Mr. 
Hibbert, who was for many years a magistrate for 
Hertfordshire, and in 1855 High Sheriff of the county, 
died in 1865. Mrs. Hibbert, who resembled Sydney 
Smith in character more closely than any of his other 
children, died at Munden in 1874. A good conver- 
sationalist as well as a good woman, she was a special 
favourite with her father's friend. Lord Jeffrey, who 
had known her since she was a child at Heslington, 
and always referred to her in terms of warm affec- 
tion. 

The marriage of Emily Smith was celebrated at 
Foston Church, and the Archbishop of York drove 
over and performed the ceremony. 



264 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

[xxxi.] Foston, January 6tli, 1828. 

Dear Lady Holland, — I have received congratu- 
lations from various quarters on being presented to a 
Prebend of Bristol, as I have done before on being 
Rector of St. George's, Bloomsbury. All that I can 
say is, no intelligence of these elevations has reached 
me. Our wedding went off to admiration. The 
dinner was well-dressed, the day not bad, the Arch- 
bishop was tall, good-natured, and obliging. The 
bridegroom and his bride looked happy. 

Ever your obliged and affectionate friend, 

Sydney Smith. 

It was perhaps well for Sydney Smith that his 
thoughts were turned into fresh channels by tidings 
of preferment, for Foston Rectory was robbed of much 
of its brightness when Emily left it as a bride. Three 
days after his daughter's wedding he confessed to a 
friend, " I feel as if I had lost a limb, and were 
walking about with one leg ; but nobody pities this 
description of invalids." ' In February he went to 
Bristol, and was duly installed in ""an extremely com- 
fortable prebendal house, which looks to the south, 
and is perfectly snug and parsonic." ^ Bristol has 
always been a stronghold of Nonconformity, and the 
Rector of Foston quickly discovered that, ecclesias- 
tically at least, the atmosphere of the city was much 
more bracing than anything which he had experienced 
in the north. The services at the Cathedral were in 
a very languishing condition, and the Church seemed 

1 Published Correspondence, p. 466. - Ibid. p. 466. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 265 

to liave lost its hold on the reverence and affection of 
the people. The citizens, of course, were aware of the 
bold and brilliant advocacy of the Catholic claims, 
which had distinguished the new Canon of Bristol ; 
and if some narrow churchmen resented Sydney 
Smith's arrival, and many timid ecclesiastics shook 
their head at his appointment to a position of so much 
influence, there was a distinct movement of the popular 
mind in his favour, and the more intelligent inhabitants 
were not slow to recognize that a renowned champion 
of liberty had appeared in their midst. 

In March he occupied the Cathedral pulpit for the 
first time, and the manly and rational tone of his 
vigorous and pointed sermons at once arrested public 
attention, and the most hostile, as well as the most 
indifferent, were compelled to acknowledge that in the 
Rev. Canon Smith, Bristol had secured a preacher 
who reached the people, not only on account of his 
popular sympatliies, but also because he appealed to 
motives which they felt, and addressed them in 
language which they could understand. Towards 
the close of his life he was accustomed to declare 
that he had only one illusion left, and that was the 
Archbishop of Canterbury ; and whilst at Bristol he 
seems to have been taken aback by the diminutive 
stature of the Bishop of the diocese, whose aspect 
was all the more startling when contrasted with his 
stately friend, Dr. Harcourt, of York, to whom as his 
ecclesiastical superior he had literally been looking up 
for many years. Conversation between the two pre- 
lates must certainly have been carried on under rather 
embarrassing conditions; for, according to Sydney 
Smith, " the Archbishop of York was forced to go 



266 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

down on his knees to converse with the Bishop of 
Bristol, just as an elephant kneels to receive its 
rider." ' 

The movement for Catholic emancipation made 
steady progress through the political storms which 
marked the opening year of the Duke of Wellington's 
tenure of power, and Brougham maintained in August 
that the question was as good as carried. " I never, 
however, think myself as good as carried," was Sydney's 
comment. " till my horse brings me to my stable-door."* 
The Mayor and Corporation of the city of Bristol, were 
accustomed to pay an annual state visit to the Cathe- 
dral on the anniversary of Gunpowder Plot, and the 
clergy were accustomed on the same occasion to dine 
with the civic authorities at the Mansion House. The 
5th of November was accordingly a time when loyal 
sentiments concerning Church and State were publicly 
exchanged by the ecclesiastical and civic dignitaries, 
and the whole city was supposed to be ablaze with 
patriotic fervour. 

The new canon was appointed to preach before the 
Mayor and Corporation on the first anniversary after 
his promotion, the 5th of November, 1828. Writing 
to inform one of his friends of this approaching duty, 
he states, " All sorts of bad theology are preached at 
the Cathedral on that day, and all sorts of bad toasts 
drunk at the Mansion House. I will do neither the 
one nor the other, nor bow the knee in the house of 
Rimmon," ^ He kept his word, and preached what he 
styled an " honest sermon " on those " Rules of 
Christian Charity, by which our opinions of other sects 

* Published Correspondence, p. 466. * Ibid. p. 468. 

' Ibid. p. 468. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 267 

should be formed." He took for his text Colossians 
iii. 12, 18, and delivered a noble and closely-reasoned 
plea for toleration in reference to the religious scruples 
of others. The sermon, as might have been expected, 
gave great offence, for the Corporation of Bristol 
included at that time many rigid and uncompromising 
Tories, and though some of them must have realized 
that the cause of bigotry was already lost, that fact 
increased rather than lessened their animosity towards 
a preacher who had compelled them for once to hsten 
to a clear and dispassionate statement of the facts of 
the case. 

The mortij&cation of the civic authorities was com- 
plete ; and they expressed the irritation which they 
felt by discontinuing for many years the custom of a 
state visit to the Cathedral, and it was only about 
twenty years ago that they forgave their grudge and 
resumed attendance ; their annual visit now, however, 
takes place at another time of the year. Bristol 
Cathedral was crowded during the delivery of Sydney 
Smith's sermon, and so great was the interest which it 
excited that he seldom stood in that pulpit again 
without looking down on a sea of upturned faces. The 
preacher became the talk of the town, and he was urged 
to print a discourse, which seemed for the moment to 
have divided the whole community into two hostile 
camps. It promptly appeared in print, with a brief 
preface in which the author claimed only to have given 
utterance to the plain rudiments of common charity 
and common sense. The newspapers took up the 
controversy, and in leading articles and letters the old 
warfare was waged. Sydney Smith was attacked at 
public dinners, and declaimed against from the pulpit, 



268 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

but when the storm was past it was apparent that the 
cause of justice had been strengthened. 

The distance of Foston from Bristol, and the desire 
also for a warmer climate than that of Yorkshire, led 
to various proposals for migration to the south or west, 
and in October he even wrote to the Earl of Carlisle to 
inform him that he had resolved to take the living of 
Corse in Gloucestershire, which he describes as being 
in a very beautiful country, in exchange for that of 
Foston ; eventually, however, this idea was aban- 
doned, and fortunately, for — unknown to himself — ■ 
other and more congenial prospects were in store for 
him. 

The winter of 1828-9 was the last which Sydney 
Smith spent at Foston, and it glided tranquilly onwards 
amid a round of congenial duties, but as spring drew 
near the shadows of approaching loss fell over the 
household. Douglas had been for some time in a 
delicate state of health, and his condition now began to 
excite the gravest misgivings. He had never been 
robust, and his strength had been overtaxed in the 
strain of a gallant and successful struggle for the post 
of captain of Westminster School. From Westminster 
he had proceeded to Christ Church, Oxford, and his 
ambition was to equip himself for the profession of the 
law ; but at the age of twenty-four, to the great sorrow 
of all who knew him, he died in London on the 15th 
of April, at the very moment when the kingdom was 
ringing with rejoicings over the final triumph, two days 
before, of the Catholic Emancipation Bill. Sydney 
Smith heard the tidings of the victory, which he had 
done so much to win, as he watched by the deathbed of 
his eldest son. Douglas Smith was buried in Kensal 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 269 

Grreen Cemetery, and his grief-stricken father, who 
sleeps beside liim now, placed the following tribute on 
his tomb : " His life was blameless. His death was 
the first sorrow he ever occasioned his parents, but it 
was deep and lasting." 

In a letter to a friend, written soon after Catholic 
Emancipation had been won, he declares, " I rejoice in 
the temple which has been reared to toleration ; and I 
am proud that I worked as a bricklayer's labourer at it 
— without pay, and with the enmity and abuse of those 
who were unfavourable to its construction." ** 

With his stall at Bristol, the new canon had received 
the small living of Halberton, near Tiverton, and the 
death of Douglas seemed to supply an additional reason 
for removal to the south — for there was not a room 
in the rectory, or a tree in its grounds that did not 
suggest to his sorrow- stricken parents the lost presence 
of their son, and all the hopes that had vanished in his 
early grave. 

Lord Lyndhurst again came to his assistance, 
and eventually it was arranged that he should ex- 
change the living of Foston for that of Combe-Florey, 
in Somerset. Combe-Florey, the " sacred valley of 
flowers," as he was afterwards accustomed to call 
it to his friends, is a beautiful village some seven 
miles distant from the pleasant old county town of 
Taunton. It was hard work leaving Foston, the scene 
of so much quiet happiness, and a place where every 
field and building had grown familiar, and where 
friends old and young, rich and poor, wise and simple, 
had gladdened the rectory with their presence. But if 

* Published Correspondence, p. 479. 



270 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



it was difficult at last for tlie rector and his family to 
tear themselves away from Foston, it was still more 
painful to the villagers to watch the dismantling of the 
house, and all the bustle of departure, and it was im- 
possible to mistake the genuine distress with which old 
people who had themselves never been given to change, 
regarded the removal of their pastor, adviser, and 
friend. The inhabitants of Foston and Thornton-le- 
Clay had learnt to love as well as to respect Sydney 
Smith, and there were not a few ready to declare when 
the last farewells had been uttered, and midsummer 
found the rectory silent and deserted, that " better 
would never come into the place." 




BKISTOL CATHEDRAL. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 271 



CHAPTER XI. 

1829—1832. 

First impressions of Combe-Florey — His manner of life there- 
Appointed Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's by Earl Grey — 
Takes part in the struggle for Eeform — Dame Partington's 
combat with the Atlantic. 

The country around Combe-Florey possesses that quiet 
charm of wooded hills, and shady lanes, and rich and 
cultivated fields, which belongs to the most characteristic 
bits of English scenery, and to none more fully than to 
the lovely vale of Taunton. The few cottages which 
make up the little village fringe the short stretch of 
road which winds between the rectory and the church, 
and, except for the beauty of its situation and the 
attraction with which Sydney Smith's presence has 
invested the spot, there is nothing of special interest 
about Combe-Florey itself. In July, 1829, the family, 
accompanied by as many of their Yorkshire retainers as 
they could persuade to leave Foston, arrived on the 
scene, and Annie Kaye and David Leef were soon 
installed in their new quarters, and proved invaluable 
in helping to carry the old methods into the new home, 
and in interpreting their master's odd ways and strange 
•commands to the more stolid and less quick-witted 
servants of the west of England. 



272 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

The rectory, a roomy house standing in the midst of 
a beautiful garden, was in a somewhat dilapidated con- 
dition, and as Sydney Smith was now tolerably well off, 
he determined to remodel and enlarge it. Some thirty 
masons and joiners were accordingly set to work, and 
under the rector's supervision such rapid progress was 
made, that ere long he was able to write to a friend, " My 
place is delightful ; never was there a more delightful 
parsonage ! Come and see it. Be ill, and require mild 
air and an affectionate friend, and set off for Combe- 
Florey.'" It was a fortunate circumstance that the sum- 
mer and autumn of 1829 were filled witli new interests 
and spent amid fresh scenes, for the death of Douglas 
had cast a deep shadow over the entire household, and the 
thought that he would never behold Combe-Florey, not 
unfrequently occasioned a thrill of pain. Adjoining the 
parsonage garden is a little wood, and in its secluded 
nooks the rector was accustomed to ramble. Most 
people who have visited the spot will not feel inclined 
to quarrel with the truth of Sydney Smith's statement 
concerning it : " The country is perfectly beautiful, 
and my parsonage the prettiest place in it." " Combe- 
Florey was in nearly every respect a great contrast 
to Foston, and the climate proved so relaxing that, 
accustomed to the bracing winds of Yorkshire, he used 
to say that the air of Somerset felt as if it had been 
boiled. The following note was written to a friend in 
the East Riding soon after his removal to the west of 
Eng-land : — 

[xxxii.j Combe-Florey, 13tli August, 1829. 

My dear Sir, — I am very sorry to lose so many 
' Published Correspondence^ p. 478. "^ Ibid. p. 476. 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 273 

good friends in Yorkshire. The only acquaintance I 
have made here is the clerk of the parish, a very 
sensible man, with great amen-ity of disposition. 

Sydney Smith. 

Philip Howard, Esq. 

Two or three weeks later, in reply to a request from 
Lord Lansdowne that he would spend a few days at 
Bowood, he gave the following account of his plans for 
the summer : — 

[xxxni.] Combe- Florey, August 22nd, 1829. 

Deae Lord LANSDO^A ne, — About the 25th of this 
month I am expecting Jeffrey and his family. Lady 
Lyndhurst and the Chancellor, as I learn from her 
ladyship, intend calling here on their way to Lord 
Morley 's. I have told her that she will be covered with 
bricks and mortar, but that, if she will come after such 
warning, we shall be most happy to see them. Till she 
says she will or will not come, 1 am in duty and 
gratitude bound to attend to that engagement. Lastly, 
I am bound by oath to go down to Lady Morley to 
meet the Chancellor and Lady L., the end of this or 
beginning of next month. It would have given us all 
very sincere pleasure to have come to Bowood but for the 
reasons I have stated, and we feel very much obliged 
by your good nature and kindness in inviting us. 

I am delighted with this parsonage and this country,, 
It is, by common consent, the prettiest place (I am 
speaking of the residences of holy men) in one of the 
finest counties of England. To leave old friends and 
acquaintances is always an evil, but in all other respects 
I have materially improved my residence, and shall 
make a very good, comfortable house^ better, I think, 

T 



274 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



than that of Foston. It would give us great pleasure 
to receive in it Lady Lansdowne and yourself. That 
you are fond of excursions I know from the testimony 
of the most fashionable baronet in England, who met 
you the other day in Lancashire. 

I take up my residence in Bristol on the first day of 




A GLIMPSE OF THE RECTORY, COMBE-FLOREY. 



the new year. I shall be very pleased to be considered 
as your neighbour ; seven or eight hours brings me to 
your door, and I would with pleasure employ double 
the time for such an object. We get from here to 
Bath in five or six hours. 

Sir Thomas L cannot keep the friendship of 



OP THE REV. SYDMEY SMITH. 275 

the Pope and that of the county of Somerset at the 
same time ; he is almost certain, I think, of being 
ejected at the next election. He is as absurd in his 
poHtical capacity as he is amiable and obliging in all 
the relations of private life in which he shines. 

I have very few years to live, and therefore I cannot 
afford to waste time in building. I have ten carpenters 
and ten bricklayers at work. Part of my house has 
tumbled down, the rest is inclined to follow. We sleep 
upon props ; an enemy or a dissenter might saw me 
down in the night-time. Pray tell Moore when my 
house is finished he must come and see me — it is really 
a place for a poet. 

1 remain, dear Lord Lansdowne, 
Very sincerely yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

The visit of Jeffrey alluded to in this letter duly 

took place in the closing days of August, and Lady 

Holland has given us a glimpse of her father and his 

old Edinburgh comrade, sitting on the lawn at Combe- 

Florey amidst the rafters and timbers of the broken 

house, enjoying the pleasant weather and tbe lovely 

scenery. The summer of 1829 was a memorable 

period to Jeifrey as well as to Sydney Smith, and a 

new phase of life was opening to both men. Long 

delayed professional honours were at last beginning to 

fall, and the Rector of Foston's preferment to a pre- 

bendal stall was soon followed by the announcement 

of his friend's appointment as Dean of the Faculty of 

Advocates.^ 

* It was in reference to this peculiarly Scottish title that Sydney 
Smith once startled a lady from beyond the Tweed with the alarm- 
ing announcement, " In England, our Deans have no faculties." 



276 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Jeffrey received this appointment (which Lord 
Cockburn declared was the highest honour of the 
kind that can be conferred in Scotland) at the begin- 
ning of July, and he immediately resigned the editorial 
chair of the Edinburgh Bevieiu ; the ninety-eighth 
number, which appeared in June, 1829, Avas the last 
for which he was responsible, so that his control of the 
great Whig organ of public opinion was not continued 
more than two years after the retirement of his brilliant 
clerical colleague. Having thus in the most honour- 
able manner slipped the collar of responsibility, almost 
the first use to which Jeffrey turned his recovered 
leisure was to visit Sydney Smith in his new home at 
Combe-Florey. He was delighted with the place, and 
being out of harness, was exactly in the spirit to enjoy 
it ; in the following year he entered Parliament, and, in 
recognition of his services to the Liberal Party, was 
made Lord Advocate of Scotland in the Grey Adminis- 
tration. In 1834 he was raised to the Scottish Bench, 
and from that period to the close of his life in 1850, he 
was known by the courtesy title of Lord Jeffrey. It 
was in prospect of his friend's elevation to the Bench, 
and in allusion to his diminutive stature, that Sydney 
Smith observed, " His robes will cost him little ; 
one buck-rabbit will clothe him to the heels. "^ As a 
judge, Jeffrey was distinguished by his capacity to take 
pains and to follow with close attention the details of 
each case brought before him, and the rapidity with 
which having done so, he arrived at a final decision. 
His unfailing courtesy and inflexible integrity increased 
the respect with which, his judgments were from first 
to last received. The exigencies of public life, added 
* Published Correspondence, p. 477. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 277 

to the distance between tlieir liomes, prevented Lord 
Jeffrey from ever renewing liis acquaintance with 
Combe-Florey, though he appears to have met from 
time to time, in London and elsewhere, his old literary- 
associate, its genial rector. It is pleasant to know that 
almost the last letter he wrote — three days before his 
fatal illness — was addressed to the widow of his life- 
long friend, and expressed even heightened admiration 
for his wisdom and his worth. 

Jeffrey's sojourn at Combe-Florey was a gratification 
to the whole household, and his intimate acquaintance 
with the missing member of it enabled him fully to sym- 
pathize with the feelings of the bereaved parents. The 
spirit of fun was not. however, exorcised either then, or 
at any subsequent period of Sydney Smith's career, and 
the old banter was wont to creep slily into the midst of 
the most earnest discussion ; and it is not even difficult to 
imagine him repeating one of his mischievous Scotch 
jokes for the benefit of his friend. "Mr. Jeffrey," he 
writes to Lady Grey, "wanted to persuade me that 
myrtles grew out of doors in Scotland, as here. Upon 
cross-examination, it turned out they were prickly, and 
that many had been destroyed by the family donkey."^ 
In an unpublished note to Lady Holland, he writes : 
" I sit in my beautiful study, looking out upon a 
thousand flowers, and reading agreeable books, in 
order to keep up my arguments with Lord Holland 
and Allen." His books were an unfailing resource, 
and he held that the only way to read to advantage 
was to read so heartily, "that dinner-time comes two 
hours before you expected it." 

* Published Correspondence, p. 474. 



278 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

The kindliness which had marked Sydney Smith's 
intercourse with the people of Foston was equally 
conspicuous at Combe-Florey, and the same active and 
practical benevolence marked all his dealings with the 
suffering and the poor. He was most regular and 
attentive in visiting the aged and the sick, and seldom 
came empty-handed to the bedsides of the poor. His 
improved position at Combe-Florey enabled him to do 
more for those who were in want than had ever been 
in his power whilst at Foston, and he was accustomed 
to assist the poor around him in delicate and generous 
ways. In cases where nourishing and tempting viands 
were required, the parsonage kitchen was called into 
requisition, and the listless hours of recovery were 
brightened in many a poor man's cottage by the 
pleasant books the rector laid upon the table when he 
went away. A room in the rectory was fitted up as a 
dispensary, and simple remedies for common ailments 
were there prescribed and distributed. He was doctor 
to all the village, and at the call of every one whom he 
had power to help. In cases of serious illness, he 
would order out his carriage and drive to Taunton 
and back, a distance of more than a dozen miles, to 
bring his own medical man, Dr. Liddon,'' to the relief 
of some poor labourer. There are only two or three 
persons now living in Combe-Florey who were in- 
timately acquainted with Sydney Smith, but they con- 
firm all that has ever been said or written concerning 
the goo dness of his heart, and his practical interest in 
the welfare of his parishioners. One man recalls the 
rector's attention to his father during a long and 

^ Dr. Liddon, a well-known practitioner in Taunton, was uncle 
to the Rev. Canon Liddon of St. Paul's. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 279 

dangerous illness, and states tliat he was accustomed 
to see him almost every day, when he would pray with 
him, and read to him, and by gay and cheery conver- 
sation divert his thoughts. 

During the earlier years of his residence at Combe- 
Florey, Sydney Smith was continually walking about 
the parish, and it was remarked that he seemed fond of 
wet weather, for whenever it rained he was sure to be 
seen trudging manfully along the muddy lanes beneath 
the shelter of a huge umbrella. He was a general 
favourite both with old and young, and he never passed 
any one on the road whom he knew without a good- 
natured joke, a kind word, or a pleasant smile. To- 
wards the close of his life he was accustomed to drive 
about the village in a low chaise drawn by two donkeys 
named ''Jack and Jill," whilst "Monk," his black 
Newfoundland dog, trotted lazily in the rear. " Jack 
and Jill," by the addition of branching antlers of 
formidable aspect and imposing magnitude, were on 
state occasions transformed into " foreign deer," and 
sent to scamper on the lawn, to the mingled amazement 
and admiration of the guests assembled at the drawing- 
room window ! Sometimes it happened that the 
" foreign deer " called attention to their own charms 
in unmistakable tones, and then the master of the house 
would gravely say — " Perhaps, ladies and gentlemen, 
you recognize their voice." There still survives at 
Combe-Florey a worthy old man, who recounts with a 
smile the glee with which he was accustomed in the 
days of his youth to obey his master's orders to 
decorate the donkeys. 

He was particularly anxious to encourage habits of 
thrift amongst the farm labourers of the village, and 



280 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



frequently, when setting out for Taunton, his carriage 
would stop at the cottage doors of the more frugal, in 
order that he might volunteer to take their savings'- 
bank books into the town that they might be posted up 
and brought back. He had personally a great horror of 
outstanding debts, and was always glad to pay at once 
the accounts of tradespeople. He kept at Combe- 
Florey all paid bills in pigeon-holes in one of his rooms, 
and seemed to derive a measure of satisfaction when- 
ever he glanced round on these discharged liabilities. 
When at home, he never paid any bill, except by cheque, 
and even accounts of a few shillings were settled in 
this way, so that he avoided the risk of paying twice 
over. " A balance at your banker's," he was ac- 
customed to say, " is a source of happiness ; you may 
have sickness, family trials, and a thousand aches and 
pains, but a balance at your bankers, taking care that 
the balance is your own, is a great relief." His own 
experience during the first five or six years at Foston 
had taught him the misery of a struggle with debt, and 
though he was now in a very different position, and 
had little reason to fear for himself, his visits to the 
cottages of the labouring men for their savings' -bank 
books were prompted by the desire that they too might 
share, to some extent at least, the '' great relief " which 
springs out of money in hand. 

Sydney Smith's connection with Halberton — the 
living which was attached to his Bristol stall — was 
little more than nominal, and he appears to have con- 
tented himself with an annual visit, and to have left 
the work of the parish to the curate in charge. At 
the first vestry meeting after his appointment, he pro- 
posed to exercise the customary right of nominating a 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 281 

vicar's cliurcli warden. His authority, however, was 
challenged by the parishioners, who evidently regarded 
the proposal as an invasion of what they had corae to 
regard as their rights. After inquiry, the matter was 
left by the new vicar in abeyance, and the parishioners 
for a term of years duly elected all the churchwardens. 
The controversy was, however, renewed when the Rev. 
Edward Girdlestone, M.A. (now Yicar of Olverston, 
and Canon of Bristol), succeeded to the living. Canon 
Girdlestone carried the question to the Court of Queen's 
Bench, and established, at a cost of 1750/. to his op- 
ponents, the vicar's right in perpetuity to nominate a 
churchwarden. The following letter was written to 
the vestry by Sydney Smith, when he felt powerless in 
the matter, and unable to establish his case : — • 

[xxxiv.] Combe-Florey Eectory, Tauntan, 

March 3rd, 1830. 

Gkntlemen, — It has always been a rule with me 
through life to be as firm and tenacious in the main- 
tenance of my just rights, as I am willing to sacrifice 
those to which I am not entitled, I must in candour 
confess that from all the evidence I can collect — and I 
have employed two active solicitors in the search — I 
cannot find that the clergyman of Halberton has been 
in the habit of nominating a churchwarden. I shall 
therefore not attempt to exercise that power this year 
at the ensuing Easter. If, from any fresh evidence I 
can collect, I should see reason to alter my opinion an- 
other year, I reserve to myself the full right of doing 
so ; but, that I may not take the parish by surprise, I 
engage to ffive two months' notice of such an intention. 
In the selection of churchwardens, I submit to you 



282 THE LIFE AND TJMES 

whether it is not right that they should be members 
of the Church of England, and if my wishes were con- 
sulted, I should desire Mr. Manley to be one of them. 
I have nothing to do, nor will I ever have anything to 
do with any dissensions which may take place in the 
parish, but Mr. Manley appears to me to be a gentle- 
man of sense and respectability, and a good Church- 
man. However, as I have said before, the choice is 
with you and not with me. If I could have satisfied 
myself that I possessed the right, I would have con- 
tested it at any expense, but I am not so satisfied, and 
I give it up as I said I would. 

I am, gentlemen, your obedient servant, 

Sydney Smith. 

The Rev. Canon Tinling, of Gloucester, was for 
several years curate to Sydney Smith at Halberton, 
and through his exertions national schools for the boys 
and girls of the parish were erected. Mr. Tinling 
states that when he wrote to ask the non-resident 
vicar's assistance in this effort, he received a donation 
and with it the characteristic reply : " Four walls and 
a thatch roof are sufficient ; but I cannot refuse, as I 
never oppose a proposition unless I am prepared to 
move an amendment." There is a tradition current 
in Halberton to this day to the effect that when Mr, 
Smith paid his annual visit to the church, he always 
preached from the same text — " I die daily." 

Parliamentary reform was a question in which 
Sydney Smith took a keen interest, and in the struggle 
which was now impending he played a manly and 
gallant part. 

The death of George IV., in June, 1830, was re- 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 2'63 

garded as a positive relief by the great majority of 
his subjects, and as soon as his oppressive influence 
was withdrawn, the popular cause came rapidly to the 
surface of the national life. The sympathies of the 
Duke of Clarence, who, as William IV., succeeded his 
unhappy brother on the throne, were known to be 
towards the Whigs, and that fact strengthened the 
new king's popularity in the country, and increased 
the demand for immediate reform. The accession of 
William IV. was quickly followed by the downfall of 
Charles X., and this second revolution in France 
excited the masses still further, and threw the nation 
itself into a condition of turbulent agitation. Fifteen 
years had rolled away since Waterloo, and during 
that interval thousands of intelligent men in every 
part of the kingdom, had become convinced that 
good government could only be secured by a change, 
which amounted to a revolution in the system of 
Parliamentary representation. The Duke of Welling- 
ton was, however, blind to the signs of the times, 
and when Lord Grey expressed the hope in the new 
Parliament, which met in the autumn, that the Cabinet 
would prepare " to redress the grievances of the people 
by a reform of the Parliament," he went so far — in 
spite of the unenfranchised thousands of Birmingham, 
Manchester, and Leeds — as to declare that the repre- 
sentation could not be improved. From that moment, 
the Wellington Administration was doomed, and on the 
16th of November it ignominiously collapsed before a 
rising storm of public indignation, and within a week, 
Lord Grey, having expressly stipulated that reform 
should be a Cabinet measure, was at the head of affairs, 
with the nation at his back. " It will seem verv odd 



284 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

to me," was Sydney Smitli's reflection soon after 
the news of the popular triumph arrived, " to pass 
through Downing Street, and to see all my old friends 
turned into official dignitaries."^ The new Premier 
announced that " Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform " 
would be the objects of his policy, and the presence in 
his administration of a Radical of the earnest and un- 
compromising type of Lord Durham, was everywhere 
accepted by the populace as a hopeful omen. Tlie 
tendency to outbreak was checked by the confidence 
which the people reposed in the Grrey Administration, 
and the wanton destruction by night of corn-ricks, 
which had disgraced the months of September and 
October, ceased with their accession to power. The 
hopes of the nation were centred in Lord Grey and his 
colleagues, and the popular enthusiasm ran so high, 
that, even ere it closed, 1830 was declared to be the 
year one of the people's cause. 

The Grovernment promptly redeemed its pledges, 
and Lord John Russell introdaced the Reform Bill on 
the 1st of March, 1831. The Bill was more compre- 
hensive than either the friends or the foes of Reform 
had been led to expect, and proposed " a measure 
which could never be withdrawn without a deadly 
struggle, nor stand without becoming a dividing line 
between the old history of England and the new." ^ 
Representation, and not nomination, was the principle 
of the Reform Bill, and even a partial application of 
this principle excluded fifty- four rotten boroughs at 
a sweep, and deprived thirty obscure towns of one 
of their representatives. The Government proposals 

'' Published Correspondence, p. 487. 

* Martineau's History of the Peace, book iv. chap. iii. p. 418. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 285 

had been awaited with great anxiety "by the people, 
and though the more advanced Radicals were disap- 
pointed that the ballot had not been included in the 
ministerial programme, they, in common with the dis- 
tressed and unrepresented classes, did all in their 
power through the press, the platform, and petitions, 
' to strengthen the hands of the great Liberal Premier. 
AVhilst the first memorable debate on the Bill was in 
progress in Parliament, meetings w^ere held all over the 
country in support of the demand for reform, and at a 
political gathering at Taunton on March 9th, " to 
address the King and both Houses of Parliament in 
approval of the measures proposed by ministers for 
Parliamentary reform," Sydney Smith attended and 
delivered a vigorous and eloquent speech, in the 
course of which he denounced as monstrous the fact 
that a retired merchant should be able to go into 
the market and buy ten shares in the government 
of twenty millions of his fellow-subjects ! 

His attitude on this occasion was in strict consistency 
with the liberal convictions which he had held for 
nearly half a century, and which he had never scrupled 
to avow, even when to do so meant the sacrifice of his 
prospects in life. The clergy, with a few honourable 
exceptions, were as hostile to the reform movement in 
the spring of 1831 as they had been to Catholic 
ejnancipation in the summer of 1825, and therefore 
general surprise was excited in the minds of all who had 
not closely watched the bold and independent career 
of the Rev. Sydney Smith, when he, a dignitary of the 
Church, w^as one of the foremost to rush into the fray. 
But in so acting he was loyal to the one principle of 
public conduct, which he was never tired of urging on 



286 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

others, and wliich marked his own career from first 
to last, "Do what you think right, and take place and 
power as an accident." 

On the 22nd of March the Reform Bill passed 
the second reading by a majority of one; but 
exactly a month later, after a Government defeat on 
General Gascoigne's amendment that the number of 
members for England and Wales ought not to be 
diminished, and an extraordinary scene in the Lords, 
the King was persuaded suddenly to dissolve Parlia- 
ment, and an appeal to the country was immediately 
made by the Grey Administration. Sydney Smith was 
accustomed occasionally to write to the local papers od, 
the questions of the hour, and no sooner had General 
Gascoigne's amendment in the Commons, and Lord 
WharncHffe's proposition in the Lords brought about a 
crisis which was favourable in the highest degree to 
the party of progress, than the following political squib 
appeared in prominent type in the columns of the 
Taunton Courier' of May 4th, 1831 : — 

Gazette ExTfiAORDiNAEY. Glorious Victory ! 

[xxxv.] Admiralty, Friday, April 22nd. 

A despatch has been this day received announcing 
a glorious victory gained by Admirals Grey and Al- 
thorp, commanding the Constitutional squadron, over 
the combined flotilla of the Anti-Reformers and 
Boroughmongers in St. Stephen's Bay. 

On board His Majesty's ship Reform. 

Anchored off Thorney Island, April 22nd. 

I have the honour to communicate (for the infor- 
mation of the friends and supporters of the British 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 287 

Constitution) the details of a splendid victory gained 
over the combined flotilla of the Boroughmongers, 
under the command of Admirals Peel and Wharncliffe, 
in St. Stephen's Bay. 

At 6 p.m., on the 21st of April, Admiral Wharn- 
cliffe, having formed the Mansfield advice-boat, the 
Carnarvon steamer, the Neivcastle trader, and the Lon- 
donderry fire-ship, in order of battle, with a flotilla of 
small craft in the rear, I directed the Richmond and 
Burdett to watch the enemy's movements. At half- 
past six Admiral Wharnclifl'e hoisted signals for a 
general attack on the vessels under my command, and 
endeavoured to annoy the Uoijal William^ the leading 
ship of our squadron. 

Seeing the intended manoeuvre could not succeed 
during the night, I worked up to windward, and in 
the morning I had the weather-gauge of the enemy. 
The Royal William having taken a fine position for 
the purpose of bearing down and breaking the enemy's 
lines, I despatched the Lord Vaux, the Lansdoione, and 
Melbourne to act as tenders, and support the Royal 
standard. 

Admiral Wharncliffe, finding himself to leeward, 
and in a desperate position, commenced a running fire. 
The Londonderry made sail at the same time to get 
alongside the Richmond^ but in the attempt was nearly 
blown out of the water by the skilful pointing of the 
Richmond's guns. The Londonderry^ endeavouring 
to exhibit a cowp d'etat, found she was only making a 
cowp desesjpoir, and finally received a coup de jarnac. 
The Richmcnd and Gla^nricarde were engaged yard-arm 
and yard-arm with the Boroughmongering flotilla, 
when the Lord Vaux ran in and fired a dreadful broad- 



288 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

side upon the enemy. She then tacked and stood off 
ag'ain for a more combined movement. 

The Loncloliderrij (rushing with too much precipi- 
tancy into the heat of action) blew up, and her guns 
going off at the same time, the explosion, which was 
heard far from the scene of action, struck terror into 
the enemy. 

The Mansfield opened a cross-fire, and endeavoured 
to parley, but was silenced by the Royal William, which 
came up in gallant style to put an end to the engage- 
ment. The thunder of her guns soon made the 
Boroughmongers run from their quarters, and hide in 
holes and corners. Victory finally crowned the brave 
Reformers, and the enemies of the Constitution were 
crushed to rise no more. 

Another party of the Rotten Borough craft, having 
commenced hostilities in the lower creek of St. 
Stephen's Bay, the commander. Admiral Peel, was 
defeated, and one of the bombs, the Vyvyan, sunk. 

The coast of Westminster is now cleared of the 
marauding cruisers, so long employed by their corrupt 
owners, and whilst the Boyal William remains on the 
station a stopper will be put upon their unconstitu- 
tional practices. 

All the Reformers under my command have done 
their duty. 

I have the honour to be, &c. 

GliEY. 

(Further particulars.) 
The following is a return of the flotilla defeated 
and destroyed in the above memorable engagement : — 
The Hero of Waterloo.^ — An excellent troopship; 

- The Duke of Wellington. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 289 

was formerly employed in the war against Buonaparte. 
Just before the action she sustained great injury by 
running her head against the rock of Reform, and 
remaining immovable. 

The Cotton Spinner.^ — Launched from the Univer- 
sity Dock, and towed into Tamworth. Veers about like 
a dog-vane in a shift of wind, and cannot keep a straight 
course. Timbers rotten. It is expected the rats will 
leave her, as these vermin know by instinct when a ship 
is not trustworthy. 

The Gascoigne.'^ — An old Liverpool trader, only fit 
to form a masked battery against the Constitution ; 
has been many years employed to transport money out 
of the pockets of the people, and carry on the slave- 
trade. 

The Honest Charlie.^ — Almost a total wreck. In her 
attempt to escape from Reform Roads she fired many 
random shots, but was left a log upon the water. 

The South'wark Fly Boat.^ — This vessel has seen 
much service, and was famous for hoisting signals to 
deceive the friends of Buonaparte. She carried off 
Lavalette ; annoyed the Government during the funeral 
of Queen Caroline ; carried off" the people's subscrip- 
tion-money ; and finally carried herself off" with a 
flowing sheet from St. Stephen's Bay at the moment 
when the Reformers required her assistance. 

The Preston Wheeling Goch.^ — It is difficult to de- 
scribe the mould and trim of this craft. She is painted 

' Sir Robert Peel, M.P. (Tamworth.) 

- General G-ascoigne, M.P. (Liverpool.) 

^ Mr, C. W. Wynn, M.P. (Montgoiuerysliire.) 

" Sir Robert Wilson, M.P. (Southwark.) 

° Mr. Henry Hunt, M.P. (Preston.) 

U 



290 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

with false ports to deceive both friends and enemies. 
She has not been closely examined, and it is uncertain 
at present whether she belongs to the Boroughmongers 
or the Reformers. She steers without compass, and 
has no ballast to keep her steady. 

The Banks of Dorset.'^ — This is a heavy-sailing lug 
boat. Its owners belong to Corfe Castle. During 
many years she has made part of the Rotten Borough 
flotilla. In the late action she succeeded in cutting 
off the supplies required by the Boyal WilUcmi. 

The Wiarnch'ffeJ — A vessel of the first class, built 
in the reign of George IV. She is only remarkable 
for her late attack on the friends and supporters of 
the Constitution. 

The Derry-Dowu.^ — This fire-ship appeared in the 
fight of the 22nd, like a volcano, vomiting terrible com- 
bustibles. Even the vessels of the Boroughmongers 
were compelled to sheer off from the flames. She 
would have grappled the Richmond, had not the Tahella 
Boch (which rises in the middle of St. Stephen's Bay) 
separated them. The Derrif-Doivii is a crazy, ungovern- 
able vessel, and it will be long before she is in a con- 
dition to resume offensive operations. She is in the 
Newcastle trade, and brings coals to London. She 
may meet a Tempest in the north, but must avoid battles 
with Reformers on the banks of the Thames. 

The Mansfield.^ — This packet carried advice to the 
Boyal William, and struck upon the shoal of Presump- 
tion. She tried to back off with a revolutionary wind, 
but could not stir ; she sank in the mud, and there she 
must remain. ^^ * * 

° Mr. W. Bankes, M.P (Dorset). ^ Lord Wbarncliffe. 

* The Marquis of Londonderry. " The Earl of Mansfield. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 291 

This brilliant victory over the Boroughmongers is 
of the highest advantage to old England. Like the • 
piratical corsairs of Algiers, they not only robbed the 
people of their property, but of their liberty and con- 
stitutional rights. The good ship Britannia has long- 
been kept on the wrong tack, but, with Reform for a 
pilot, she will put about, steer for free and fair Repre- 
sentation, and sail with a fair breeze into the harbour 
of Public Prosperity. Our present helmsman knows 
how to keep her steady by avoiding the rocks and 
quicksands of Corruption, which obstruct the channel 
through which the Reformers must navigate. Riding 
at last in smooth water, and clear of the dangers 
spread by her enemies, she may again protect com- 
merce, and excite the admiration of the world. 



Popular indignation was everywhere aroused by the 
treatment which the measure had received, and " the 
Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill," became 
the election cry. Not only in the great towns, but in 
rural districts as yet untraversed by the iron horse, 
the daily newspapers, or the electric telegraph, the 
keenest political interest was excited, and the pos- 
sessor of the week's sevenpenny newspaper found 
himself beset whenever he stirred abroad by anxious- 
looking men who implored him to tell them the pro- 
bable fate of the Bill. 

The new Parliament met in June, and the glad tidings 
ran quickly through the land that the Reformers were in 
a great majority — out of eighty-two county members 
returned, only six were hostile to the Bill ; and all but 
the most short-sighted of men began to realize that, 
for good or for evil, the political life of England was on 



292 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the verge of a revolution whicli it was no longer pos- 
sible to arrest. The speech from the Throne advised 
the Commons to set their house in order, and three 
days later Lord John Russell (now justly rewarded 
by Cabinet rank) introduced the second Reform Bill 
— which was substantially the same as the first — 
and the measure was carried rapidly through its preli- 
minary stages, and passed the second reading on the 
8th of July by a majority of 136. 

In Committee, however, the Government was met 
night after night by a succession of irritating and 
trivial objections, and whilst Parliament wrangled over 
clause after clause of the Bill, the people, afraid that the 
Scotch moors would prove irresistible to jaded legis- 
lators in the sultry days of August, became alarmed 
and indignant, and from various parts of the kingdom 
came ominous testimony to the growing impatience 
of the masses. At length the tactics of the Opposition 
were exhausted, and the Reform Bill passed the House 
of Commons, and was sent up to the Peers. The 
"lords spiritual and temporal" made short work of 
the measure, for on the 7th of October, by a majority 
of forty-one, the Bill was contemptuously thrown 
out. 

The people, now thoroughly exasperated, gave 
utterance to their wrath by alarming threats and 
stormy meetings in every part of the kingdom, 
and it was only the confidence they reposed in 
their leaders, and the certainty they felt in the 
speedy and complete triumph of their cause, which 
restrained a general outbreak of violence. Even as 
it was, riots of the most disquieting and turbulent 
kind took place at Bristol, Derby, and elsewhere, 



OF TEE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 293 

and Nottingliam Castle was set on fire by an in- 
furiated mob, as if to convince the Duke of Newcastle 
that it was not always advisable for a man to "do 
what he liked with his own." 

In the midst of all this political turmoil and excite- 
ment, Lord Grey, who had long been anxious to 
acknowledge the obligations which the Whig Party 
were under to his friend, the Rector of Combe-Florey, 
gladly availed himself of a moment' s lull in the fray, 
and an unexpected vacancy in the Church, to appoint 
Sydney Smith a Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's. A 
few weeks previously it seemed proba,ble that a stall 
at Westminster, and not one at St. Paul's, would have 
fallen to his lot, for Dr. Bell, one of the chapter at the 
Abbey, was then thought to be dying, and Earl Grey 
wrote to Sydney Smith to say that, if a vacancy 
occurred, he should receive the appointment. It was 
St. Paul's, however, and not Westminster, which was 
henceforward to be associated in men's minds with the 
name of Sydney Smith, as the accompanying letter will 
show : — 

[xxxvi.] Downing Street, Sept. 10th, 1831. 

My dear Sydney, — You are much obliged to Dr. 
Bell for not dying, as he had promised. By the pro- 
motion of the Bishop of Chichester to the See of 
Worcester, a Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's becomes 
vacant. A snug thing, let me tell you, being worth 
full 2000L a year. To this the King, upon my recom- 
mendation, has signified his pleasure that you should 
be appointed, and I do not think it likely that you can 
be t?i6'-appointed a second time by the old bishop 
coming to life again, like Dr. Bell. Mr. Harvey, tutor 



294 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

to Prince George of Cambridge, will have your stall at 

Bristol. 

I am, my dear Sydney, 

Yours very sincerely, 

GliEY. 

p,g^ — I must take care that your appointment is 
placed out of the possibility of being recalled — before 
we are turned out ! 

The appointment was gratefully accepted, and the 
Rev. Sydney Smith read himself in at St. Paul's on 
the 2nd of October, and his visit to London for that 
purpose enabled him to watch the reception of the 
Reform Bill by the House of Lords. He had reached 
the age of threescore before he received this recognition 
of his services, and, although his career extended until 
1845, no higher preferment was bestowed upon him; 
and this neglect was the more remarkable, as men 
who were both his political and personal friends held 
office during most of those years. 

The Whigs have been blamed not a little for the 
languid appreciation which they showed towards their 
ablest clerical supporter, and they have been some- 
what thoughtlessly charged with ingratitude in not re- 
warding so bold and consistent a champion of justice 
and liberty with episcopal rank. Some of Sydney 
Smith's admirers resented this supposed slight rather 
warmly, and when it was observed to one of them, on 
the occasion of an offer of a place in the ministry 
to O'Connell, that the Whigs, after all, could forgive 
and forget, the retort was immediate, — " Yes ; they 
forgive O'Connell and forget Sydney Smith ! " 

There is evidence enough to prove that the new 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 295 

Canon of St. Paul's was at one time ambitious of higher 
ecclesiastical position than that to which he attained ; 
but " whether I get preferment or not," was his quiet 
remark to a friend, " I shall always be the same, and, 
like the patent flannel at seven shillings a yard, will 
never shrink in heat or cold ! " In the ranks of his 
profession he had fought almost single-handed on be- 
half of the rights of the people, and had endured no 
small share of obloquy and reproach — during a 
struggle which extended over the best years of his 
life — for his resolute adherence to what was then 
the despised cause of civil and religious liberty. It 
is easy, therefore, to understand why a man who 
had borne the burden and heat of the day should 
feel annoyed when Liberals of the eleventh hour were 
awarded positions which were altogether out of pro- 
portion to their deserts. "It is perhaps of little 
consequence to any party, whether I adhere to it or 
not," was his statement in an uupublished letter to 
Lord Holland, " but I always shall adhere to the Whig- 
party, whoever may be put over my head, because I have 
an ardent love of truth and justice, and they are their 
best defenders." It is no use, however, attempting to 
disguise the fact that Sydney Smith, notwithstanding 
his ability and goodness, lacked some of the essential 
qualifications for a bishopric, and the best friends, 
both of the witty Canon and the Church of England, 
can scarcely have desired to see the author of Peter 
Plymley and Dame Part ington in lawn sleeves. 

If, instead of being appointed Canon of St. Paul's, 
he could have been appointed Dean of Westminster, 
he would have received the most appropriate, and 
probably the most acceptable, recognition of his 



296 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

splendid services to the nation. People who urge 
his claims to a bishopric appear to be oblivious 
of the fact that before it was in the power of his 
political allies to offer him such preferment, he was 
already an old man, with growing physical infirmities, 
and was scarcely in a condition to cope with the 
inevitable anxieties and increased responsibilities which 
must in the very nature of things always accompany the 
control of a diocese. There is, moreover, conclusive 
proof that he himself lost all desire for exalted office 
in the Church soon after the Whigs returned to power, 
and, influential and happy in his work at St. Paul's, 
and in his relationship with his humble parishioners at 
Combe-Florey, it is certain that nothing would 'have 
induced him to sever ties which grew closer and more 
alluring with the lapse of years. 

After reading himself in at St. Paul's, the new Canon 
returned at once to Somerset, and writing from Combe- 
Florey on the 6th of October, he stated that as the 
coach rolled westwards he found " public meetings 
everywhere, and the utmost alarm at the idea of the 
Bill being thrown out ; coachmen, ostlers, inside and 
outside passengers, barmaids and waiters, all eager for 
news." ' Two days later the worst fears of the people 
were verified, for on the 8th the Lords rejected the 
measure. Sydney Smith had predicted that any 
attempt of the Lords to throw out the Bill would be 
the signal for the most energetic resistance from one 
end of the kingdom to the other, and as soon as the 
news spread through the country on that memorable 
Saturday immediate steps were taken by the people 

^ Published Correspondence, p. 491. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 297 

to reassert their claims in bolder terms than ever. 
Several of the leading Liberal newspapers appeared in 
mourning, and all of them hotly resented the action 
of the Peers. Muffled peals were rung in some 
instances on the bells of the churches. Riots and 
disturbances began again, and in almost every town 
crowded and enthusiastic meetings were held to 
support the Government. 

On the following Tuesday, the 1 1th of October, a meet- 
ing was held at Taunton to petition the king to retain the 
ministry, and to express unabated confidence in Lord 
Grey and his colleagues ; and it was on that occasion 
that Sydney Smith delivered the famous speech in 
which he compared the efforts of the House of Lords 
to restrain the rising tide of Democracy to the ludicrous 
endeavour of Mrs. Partington to sweep back the waves 
of the Atlantic from her door. 

The meeting was summoned for the hour of noon, 
and it was announced that it would be held in the 
usual place of assembly, the Guildhall. When the 
time arrived, however, the people had gathered in 
such numbers from far and wide that the idea of 
the Guildhall had to be abandoned, and it was deter- 
mined that the meeting should be held in the Assize 
Hall, which was capable of holding ten times the 
number, and which was immediately filled to over- 
flowing. Sydney Smith's speech was short, but 
telling. He began by deploring the collision which 
had arisen between the two Houses of Parliament, and 
did so on the ground that it impeded the public 
business, and diminished the public prosperity. He 
declared that, as a Churchman, he blushed to see so 
many dignitaries of the Church arrayed against the 



298 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

wishes and happiness of the people. As for the loss 
of the Bill he cared little, and that for the best of all 
possible reasons, because he had not the slightest idea 
that it was lost. He felt as certain that the Bill would 
pass in the course of a few months as that the annual 
taxes would be gathered. 

Then followed, in two or three words, the inimita- 
ble sketch of Mrs. Partington's unequal combat with 
the ocean: "As for the possibility of the House of 
Lords preventing ere long a reform of Parliament, I 
hold it to be the most absurd notion that ever entered 
into human imagination. I do not mean to be dis- 
respectful, but the attempt of the Lords to stop the 
progress of Reform reminds me very forcibly of the 
great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of 
the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In 
the winter of 1 824 there set in a great flood upon that 
town — the tide rose to an incredible height — the waves 
rushed in upon the houses, and everything was 
threatened with destruction. In the midst of this 
sublime and terrible storm. Dame Partington, who 
lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house 
with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing 
out the sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the 
Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. 
Partington's spirit was up ; but I need not tell you 
that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean 
beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or 
a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a 
tempest. Gentlemen, be at your ease — be quiet and 
steady — you will beat — Mrs. Partington." The de- 
scription of Mrs. Partington's adventure was received 
with peals of laughter ; and when the closing sentence 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 299 

brought the application, the enthusiasm of the great 
assembly knew no bounds. 

The wit of Sydney Smith was never put to a better 
purpose than on that occasion ; for the story of Dame 
Partington's unequal battle with the Atlantic imme- 
diately caught the pubhc fancy, and, as the press car- 
ried it everywhere, did more than argument or entreaty 
to relax the savage temper of the nation, and to turn 
defiant hostility, which threatened a breach of the 
peace, into good-natured contempt, which made pa- 
tience possible. There are now very few persons 
living who were present when the Rector of Combe- 
Florey told this story ; but Mr. R. A. Kinglake, J. P., 
of Taunton, who has enriched the closing chapters 
of this book in many ways, has kindly furnished some 

Personal Recollections op Sydney Smith's Reform 

Speech. 

[xxxvil] (Taunton, Oct. 11th, 1831.) 

Sydney Smith was no unfrequent guest at the 
house of my father. Dr. Kinglake, who was among the 
first to congratulate him on his taking possession of 
his new preferment, Combe-Florey, that paragon of 
parsonages, abounding in sunshine and roses, and free 
from the blasts of the unkind east wind. I remember 
as if it was but yesterday the excitement that prevailed 
in the town and neighbourhood on the occasion of the 
great Reform Meeting, at which he described, as no 
other man could have done, the immortal duel between 
Dame Partington and the Atlantic Ocean. On that 
exciting day carriages of every shape and size, and 
horses of every breed were urgently requisitioned. 
The county squires, the farmers, the clergy, county 



300 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

voters, and a sturdy band of Nonconformists and 
Church-rate Abohtionists, mingled indiscriminately 
with the ' buffs and blues ' of the ancient borough of 
Taunton, as they rushed on to the old Castle Hall. 

It was no obscure structure in which the unrivalled 
wit was to address the assembled multitude, but a 
grand building, built by a Saxon king, and rich in 
historic interest. Within its walls the illustrious 
Robert Blake must have often taken counsel with his 
faithful followers, whilst defending with the genius of 
a strategist the unfortified town against a powerful 
Royalist army. Here, too, the ferocious Judge Jeffreys, 
the murderer of the gentle Alice Lisle, held his Bloody 
Assize ; and in calmer days Henry Fielding, the father 
of the English novel, might have been heard address- 
ing a West-country jury of more than ordinary stu- 
pidity ; and the great William Pitt, moreover, first dis- 
played his powers of oratory within these ancient walls. 

On that October morning, long before Sydney 
Smith had entered the town, every seat was taken in 
the hall. The Bailiffs of the Borough, and other pro- 
minent inhabitants, occupied the platform, where also 
seats were reserved for. a few ladies of position in 
the county and town, including the beauteous Leth- 
bridges of Sandhill Park, kind neighbours and faithful 
friends of Sydney Smith. In those days the Iron 
King was not visible in the West of England, and I 
well remember hearing that extraordinary pressure 
was put on the postal authorities with a view of get- 
ting the speech despatched with all possible celerity to 
Printing-House Square, soon to be read with eager 
eyes by his friend, Earl G-rey, and other members of 
the Whig Cabinet. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 301 

More than half a century has passed away, yet 
I see before me now the famihar figure of one whom 
*' wise men loved, and even wits admired ; " as I 
beheld him entering the hall, I was struck with the 
calm dignity of his manner ; the people respectfully 
made way for him as he passed, and seemed, I thought, 
awed by his noble presence. Many of those who 
were present wore silver medals, on one side of which 
was engraved a portrait of Earl Grey, and on the 
other a bundle of sticks, with the motto, " Union is 
strength." The majority of those who were present 
did not share the calmness of Sydney Smith, for 
they had not the same vision of triumph, and some 
even feared that the country was on the verge of 
civil war. 

Just before Sydney Smith rose to speak, a fool- 
ish and violent reformer in the hall started to his 
feet, and cried out in a loud voice, "If we don't 
have Reform directly, we will pull down that 
church ! " — pointing to the beautiful Church of St. 
Mary Magdalen, the gem of Somerset — " we will pull 
it down and repair the roads with its stones." No 
sooner were the words uttered than Sydney Smith 
calmly rose from his seat, and walked deliberately 
across the hall, and looking the man straight in the 
face, said in perfectly distinct and freezing tones of 
scorn, "Your language, sir, is highly indecent." 
The man immediately subsided, and I never after- 
wards saw him again in public. 

His speech was delivered in a clear and musical 
voice, and with all the fluency and grace of an accom- 
plished orator ; from first to last, he had complete 
command over his audience, and no one ventured to 



302 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

lausfli until he issued his mandate. The introduction 
of the Partington storm was starthng and unexpected, 
but as he recounted in felicitous terms the adventures 
of the excellent dame, suiting the action to the word 
with great dramatic skill, he commenced trundling 
his imaginary mop and sweeping back the intrusive 
waves of the Atlantic, with an air of resolute deter- 
mination, and an appearance of increasing temper. 
The scene was realistic in the extreme, and was too 
much for the gravity of the most serious ; and even 
the staid brethren in drab were convulsed with uncon- 
trollable mirth. The house rose, the people cheered, 
and tears of superabundant laughter trickled down 
the cheeks of fair women and veteran Reformers. 

Robert Arthur Kinglake, J.P. 

Haines Hill, Taunton, 7th March, 1884 



There is little need to dwell on the subsequent 
stages of the great agitation for Reform, for practi- 
cally the victory was already won, and though there 
were still obstacles to be encountered, the conscious- 
ness that the nation was at their back armed the 
Ministry then, as it must always do, with invincible 
strength. " Pray beg of Lord Grrey to keep well," 
wrote Sydney Smith to the Countess, when the third 
Reform Bill was fighting its way in the spring of 1832, 
" I have no doubt of a favourable issue. I see an 
open sea beyond the icebergs. '% The last of the ice- 
bergs was safely past, and the good ship of the State 
went out into the " open sea," on the 7th of June, 
1832, whto the Reform Bill became law amid the 
"^ Published Correspondence, p. 496. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



303 



rejoicings of tliousauds whom it had emancipated 
from political thraldom. " There are two methods of 
making alterations," remarked Sydney Smith when 
the struggle was over, " the one is to make conces- 
sions which are always too late ; the other to see at a 
distance that the thing must be done effectively and at 
once. The merit of this latter method belongs to 
the administration of Lord Grey; he is the only 
Minister I know who has conceded at the beginning 
of twenty years what would have been extorted at 
the end of it." 




THE CASTLE HALL, TAUNTON 

( Where the Dame Partington Speech was delivered). 



304 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER XII. 

1832—1839. 

Combe-Florey and London— Old friends and new — Letters to Arch- 
deacon Singleton — Eepublislies his contributions to i\\Q Edinhunjh 
Review. 

The summer of 1832 brought a succession of visitors 
to Combe-Florey, and amongst them came Lord John 
Russell — one of the heroes of the hour. " My butler," 
relates Sydney Smith, " said that he should let the 
country people peep through the shutters at Lord 
John for a penny a piece. I wonder what he would 
charge for Lord Grey, if he should come here." ' He 
declared that the people were disappointed by the 
extreme smallness of " Lord John Reformer," and 
that he turned it off by assuring them that he was 
once much larger, but had diminished from extreme 
political anxiety. 

The beautiful coast scenery of North Devon pos- 
sessed a great attraction for Sydney Smith, and the 
romantic neighbourhood of Lynton drew forth his 
special admiration. Set completely at ease in his 
circumstances, he felt at liberty, now that he was on 
the shady side of sixty, to lead a more leisurely life ; 
but whilst he successfully endeavoured, as he said, 

' Published Correspondence, p. 499. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 305 

"to grow old merrily," and to enjoy the fair aspects 
of nature which were now within his reach, no con- 
sideration of personal pleasure or ease was ever per- 
mitted to interfere with his work amongst his 
parishioners at Combe-Florey, for, though he was 
generally gay, he was never careless, and unfailing 
devotion to everything which he esteemed a duty 
was not the least prominent or honourable trait in 
his character. 

The death of a friend of his youth — Sir James 
Mackintosh — which took place as the summer was 
dawning, was an occurrence which he severely felt. 
The two men, although their fortunes in life lay far 
apart, had always held each other in affectionate re- 
gard, and there were few more welcome guests atFoston 
than the absent-minded, but warm-hearted. Sir James. 
It was of Mackintosh — whom Horner was accustomed 
to term his own "Intellectual Master" — that Sydney 
Smith declared " he could not hate ; he did not know 
how to set about it. The gall-bladder was omitted in 
his composition." ^ Amongst more recent friendships 
which did much to cheer the closing years of Sydney 
Smith's life, was one which he had formed with the 
Earl and Countess of Morley, and as their seat at 
Saltram was comparatively near, he was a frequent 
visitor.^ Some of liis most characteristic letters in the 
published collection, including the famous one on the 
mysterious subject of Quaker babies, were addressed 
to the lively and accomplished countess, who was 
herself a woman of wit and a recognized ornament of 

- " Life of Sir James Mackintosh," vol. ii. chap. viii. p. 564. 

^ The tidings of his preferment to a canonry of St. Paul's reached 
him whilst LordMorley's guest at Saltram. 

X 



306 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

society. Mr. Abraham Hayward, writing in 1855 in 
tlie pages of the Edinburgh Review, declared that the 
" death of Lady Morley was the greatest loss which 
English society had sustained since it lost Sydney 
Smith." Lady Morley greatly relished the peculiar 
humour of Sydney Smith, and her own vivacious re- 
torts called forth in conversation his most brilliant 
powers. A close friendship sprang up between the 
canon and the countess, and no one appreciated more 
highly than the former the many claims to admira- 
tion and honour which met in Lady Morley, — 

" Whose laugh, full of mirth, without any control 
But the sweet one of gracefulness, rang from her soul." 

Most of the letters to the countess have already 
been published, but two or three characteristic notes 
are here inserted with the permission of the present 
Earl of Morley, the grandson of Sydney Smith's cor- 
respondent. 

[xxxviii.] Combe-Florey (1832). 

My dear Lady Moeley, — Excuse my tenderness 
in asking you how you do, because I heard from Mrs. 
Yilliers you were not so well as all your friends 
wished you to be. Don't consider this merely as a 
summer hotel. We do a good deal of business in the 
winter, and are as warm as a stove, so be so good as 
to come here on your way to London. I am going to 
Cambridge, London, and twenty places, but shall re- 
turn in a fortnight. * * * We are all obliged to Dr. 
Erica for keeping you clear of cholera — a dangerous 
disease, but a shabby and insignificant epidemic. Our 
soups had the full approbation of Luttrell; he 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 307 

declared himself last year perfectly satisfied with the 
fish department. I hope Lord Morley is on his legs 
again ; my kind remembrance to him. 

Ever, my dear Lady Morley, 

Very truly yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

The sly reference to Luttrell suggests a passing 
remark, as he was a prominent figure in the society 
of Holland House. A man of wit and fashion, and a 
celebrated diner-out, his company at table was greatly 
sought, and his criticism of the viands sometimes 
feared, as he was a connoisseur of the first rank, and a 
judge of dainty dishes, whose verdict was final. It 
was Luttrell who was responsible for the saying that 
the man who does not like a good dinner must be 
either a fool or a liar, and, as every one is aware, his 
notion of the English climate was, " on a fine day, 
like looking up a chimney ; on a rainy day, like look- 
ing down it." * Rogers declared that he knew no man 
in London society who could slide in a brilliant thing 
into general conversation with equal readiness. It 
was Luttrell who detested* the sight of monkeys, and 
based his objection on the plea that they reminded 
him too vividly of poor relations. 

[xxxix.] Combe-Morey, Jan. 25th, 1833. 

My dear Lady Morley, — What is deferred is not 
lost. We shall hope to see you in better weather, and 
when this beautiful country has put on its fine clothes. 
* * * I am convinced Brighton is the place for 
November, December, and January. If I could live 

'' Russell : " Memoir, Journal, and Correspondence of Thomas 
Moore " (May 22nd, 1828). 



308 I'HE LIFE AND TIMES 

where I pleased, tliere I would then live ; then London 
till the middle of June, then four months of the 
country. What a reasonable man I am ; but always 
sincerely 

Yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

Lady Morley had expressed a wish to hear the Rev. 
Edward Irving preach, and Sydney Smith at once 
volunteered to accompany her. On inquiry, however, 
he found that the famous Scotch preacher was just 
setting out for the north, and he therefore wrote in 
the following terms to postpone the engagement : — 

[xL.] 20, Saville Row, Bond Street (1833). 

Dear Lady Morley, — Touching this discourse which 
we intended to hear, it is my duty to inform you 
that the preacher goes out of town to-night. * * * 
Let us, therefore, dear Lady Morley, be content with 
the hebdomadal truisms, the tranquil logic, and the 
undeniable positions of our parish priests, and re- 
strain, if you please, that pungency of remark, and 
that sharpness of distinction, which characterizes you 
in secular things. Lower your spirit, prostrate your 
talents, be like other ladies till church is over, and 
only till then, or you will lose the homage of 

Sydney Smith. 

The Earl and Countess of Morley paid a visit to 
Combe-Florey in the course of the summer of 1833, 
and Lady Davy, the wife of the great chemist, fol- 
lowed them in September. 

[xLi.l Combe-Florej, Sept. 7th, 1833. 

My dear Lady Davy, — We shall be heartily glad 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 309 

to see you on the 14th. We dine at half-past six, and 
are six miles and a half from Taunton, where our inn 
is the London Inn. The artiste (who is instructing 
our lady cook) is not despicable; but his forte seems 
to be culinary architecture. He has done Solomon's 
Temple in red sugar, and Somerset House with 
Powlett Thomson * looking out of the window, in 
chocolate. 

Ever sincerely yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

His duties at St. Paul's called him frequently to 
London, and whilst there in November he wrote an 
amusing note to a gentleman who made the not 
uncommon request for a good place at a forthcoming 
service of special interest : — 

[xLii.] 56, Green Street, Grrosvenor Square, 

November 22nd, 1833. 

Deak Guillemard, — To go to St. Paul's is certain 
death. The thermometer is several degrees below 
zero. My sentences are frozen as they come out of 
my mouth, and are thawed in the course of the 
summer, making strange noises and unexpected asser- 
tions in various parts of the church ; but if you are 
tired of a world which is not tired of you, and are 
determined to go to St. Paul's, it becomes my duty 
to facilitate the desperate scheme. Present the en- 
closed card to any of the vergers, and you will be well 

placed. 

Ever truly yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

On his return to Combe-Florey he despatched a letter 

^ Afterwards first Lord Sydenham. 



310 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

to Lady Morley, in which he gives some account of 
his past movements and future plans : — 

[xLiii.] Combe-Florey, Dec, 1833. 

My dear Lady Moeley, — I have been to London 
for a month without fogs, with many friends and very 
agreeable. * * * I am returned to the via monotone till 
the middle of February, when we are all going to 
London ; some say we are going to be married, but 
I know nothing about it. I never saw Lord Grey 
better ; he has no more notion of resigning his place 
than I have of resigning St. Paul's. I taxed Lady 
Holland roundly and plainly with being a good deal 
better, and after much shuffling and evasion, she was 
forced to confess that she was better. I promised not 
to tell.^ E-ead ' Hamilton's America,' it is quite excel- 
lent. Brougham's brother died of a complaint of 
very old standing, mismanaged in the country where 
all complaints are mismanaged, but many prevented. 
* * * I suppose you will not be in London till the 
supra fines begin to assemble, and yet there will be some 
bloody battles in the Lords. We have been sur- 
rounded all summer by scarlet fever, and have buried 
one-fourteenth of our population ; our average burials 
are two and a half, and we have buried this year 
twenty-one ; the same thing happened a hundred and 
fifty years ago. 

God bless you, dear Lady Morley. 

Although Sydney Smith was not " going to be 
married," his eldest daughter, Saba, was about to 

^ Lady Holland, towards tlie close of her life, afforded her friends 
mingled amusement and concern by h er whimsical anxiety concerning 
her health. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 311 

become the wife of Dr. Henry Holland, and in the 
spring of 1834 the marriage duly took place. " It 
makes my old age much happier," were his words, "to 
have placed my amiable daughter in the hands of so 
honourable a son." ^ When he was informed that his 
daughter's marriage was announced in the London 
papers under the heading of " Fashionable Intelli- 
gence," he exclaimed, with a merry twinkle in his 
eye, " How absurd ! — why, we pay our bills ! " The 
marriage of his daughter deprived him of one who had 
been a constant companion for many years, and as it 
was followed by a summer of sickness, the loss was all 
the more keenly felt. Gout, which he was accustomed 
ruefully to declare was the only enemy he did not wish 
to have at his feet, was laying siege to him, and occa- 
sionally he was also troubled with violent pain in the 
eyes. 

In July, Lord Grey resigned his position at the head 
of affairs, but not before he had carried the abolition 
of colonial slavery, the abolition of the East India 
Company's monopoly, and the Poor Law Amendment 
Act, through the first reformed Parliament. A few 
weeks after Earl Grey's retirement, Sydney Smith 
wrote to the countess in the following terms : — 

[xLiv.] Combe-Florey, 26tli August, 1834. 

My dear Lady Grey, — Tired of groaning alone on 
a sofa in London, and unwilling that Mrs. Sydney 
should quit her flower-garden in July and come to 
town, I set off with the gout in both feet, and got 
home without being the worse for the effort. Before 
the gout left me here, I had a sharp attack of 
" Published Correspondence, p. 509. 



312 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

ophthalmia, and am now recovering fast, though a 
httle blind and a little lame. Your letter gave me 
great pleasure. Lord Grey has met with that recep- 
tion which every honest and right-minded man felt to 
be his due. If I had never known him and lived in 
the north, I should have come out to wave my bonnet 
as he passed. He may depend upon it, he has played 
a great part in Enghsh history, and that the best part 
of the English people entertain for him the most 
profound respect. And now for the rest of life let 
him trifle and lounge, and do everything which may 
be agreeable to him, and not be too severe in 
criticizing himself. God bless you. 

Sydney Smith. 

He had now been a canon residentiary of St. Paul's 
for upwards of three years, and his ability as a 
preacher, which had long been admitted by the more 
cultivated and thoughtful in the nation, was at length 
fully recognized on all sides, and became one of the 
chief attractions to that fickle, and somewhat limp and 
unsatisfactory crowd, which in every great, city runs 
hither and thither on Sundays to catch the words of 
well-known men. If, as not unfrequently happened, a 
passing stranger half carelessly followed the multitude 
into the cathedral, attracted by their eagerness and 
its magnificence, his apathy vanished when the sermon 
began, and the discovery was made that he was 
listening to the voice of a man of strong and original 
character, who spoke with an air of authority, and in 
accents of conviction. The freshness and variety of 
the preacher's language was not more remarkable than 
the vigorous thought and generous sympathy which 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMJTfl. 313 

marked his utterances, and the favourable impression 
thus created was deepened by his familiar yet dignified 
manner, and the evident sincerity and naturalness of 
the man himself. 

Strangers entering St. Paul's on such an occasion, 
in the year 1834, would have witnessed a burly but 
active- looking man of sixty-three, of medium height, 
with dark complexion and iron-grey hair, ascend the 
pulpit. When he stood up to preach, the shapel}^ and 
well-carried head, the fine eyes, with their quick and 
penetrating glance, the expression of thorough bene- 
volence which lit up the sensitive yet boldly chiselled 
features of the strong and intellectual face, would all 
contribute to heighten favourably the first general im- 
pression concerning a man whose every movement sug- 
gested intelligence, determination, and kindliness. One 
who was not by any means a stranger to Sydney Smith 
has given a brief description of a service at St. Paul's 
when he was the preacher, in the year mentioned ; and 
the following passage from the journal of so shrewd 
an observer as Mr. Grenville will be read with 
interest : — 

" December 1st, 1834.— Went to St. Paul's yester- 
day evening to hear Sydney Smith preach. He is 
very good ; manner impressive, voice sonorous and 
agreeable, rather familiar, but not offensively so, 
language simple and unadorned, sermon clever and 
illustrative. The service is exceedingly grand, per- 
formed with all the pomp of a cathedral, and chanted 
with beautiful voices ; the lamps, scattered few and far 
between throughout the vast space under the dome, 
making darkness visible, and dimly revealing the 
immensity of the building, were extremely striking. 



314 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

The cathedral service thus chanted and performed is 
my beau ideal of religious worship, — simple, intelli- 
gible, and grand, appealing at the same time to the 
reason and the imagination." ** 

One of the most interesting men in London society 
at this period was Mr. Richard Sliarp, M.P., a promi- 
nent figure in the social life of the capital from the 
days of Johnson and Burke, to those of Mackintosh 
and Byron. He had amassed a large fortune in trade, 
and had managed at the same time to acquire accurate 
and extensive information on a great variety of subjects. 
He was a splendid talker, and that fact led his friends 
to give him the name by which perhaps he is best 
known to the present generation — " Conversation 
Sharp." One of Luttrell's best jokes was made at the 
expense of Sharp. " I was mentioning," relates 
Moore, " that some one had said of Sharp's very dark 
complexion, that he looked as if the dye of his old 
trade (hat-making) had got engrained in his face." 
"Yes," said Luttrell, "darkness that may he felt!'* 
Sharp was an intimate friend of Sydney Smith's, and 
they constantly met in the society of Holland House ; 
he died in 1835, and one of the most charming letters 
in the published correspondence of his clerical friend 
was written to him during the long illness which 
preceded his death. 

"With men Hke Luttrell, E-ogers, Moore, and 
Sharp, Sydney Smith was in his element, and their 
gay fancy and lively wit called forth some of his 
most sparkling sallies. One day, the conversation 
ran on the subject of pluralities in the Church, and 

** Grenville, " Memoirs and Journals," vol. iii. chap. xxv. p. 166. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 315 

Luttrell told an anecdote concerning an Irisli clergy- 
man who hotly resented the application of the term to 
himself. He protested against being described as a 
" pluralist," and added impetuously, " if you don't 
take care what you are saying, you will find me a 
duellist.'^ Sydney immediately caught up the idea, 
and said, " I suppose there is scarcely a clergyman in 
Ireland who has not been out. I am told they settle 
these matters when the afternoon's service is over. 1 
myself have seen a parson's challenge — ' Sir, meet me 
on the first Sunday after Epiphany.' " 

On another occasion, he entertained his friends with 
a laughable account of the difficulties in the way of 
introducing trial by jury into Australia ; the colonists 
up-country were beset with obstacles of a kind of which 
we at home did not so much as dream, and he ended 
up a statement to that effect by putting the following- 
words into the mouth of an embarrassed and reluctant 
juryman : " I cannot come and serve upon your jury ; 
the waters are out, and I have two miles to swim. 
If I leave, the kangaroos will break into my corn. My 
little boy has been bitten by an ornithorhynchus para- 
doxus. I have sent a man fifty miles with a sack 
of flour to buy a pair of breeches for the assizes, 
and he has not yet returned." 

Sydney Smith's efforts to soothe the ruffled feelings 
of a friend were not always successful, and were some- 
times hardly of a nature to warrant the hope that they 
would produce that result. A worthy baronet, who 
dabbled in politics, came to him one day very much 
irritated. " What is the matter ? " was the immediate 
question. "Are any of our institutions in danger?" 
" No, but I have just been with Brougham, whom I 



316 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

sought out for the purpose of making an important 
communication, but upon my word, he treated me as 
if I was a fool! " "Never mind, my dear fellow," 
said Sydney, in his most sympathetic tones, " never 
mind, never mind, he thought you knew it ! " 

The letters which he wrote at this period, especially 
during his visits to London, reveal his keen enjoyment 
of the ordinary intercourse of life, and sometimes even 
so common-place a production as an invitation to an 
evening party becomes in his hands amusingly frank 
and explicit, as the accompanying note to his valued 
friend Miss Harcourt proves : — 

[xLv.] 18, Stratford Place, March 21st, 1835. 

Dear Geoegiana, — Our rout generally consists of 
half a dozen highly respectable old women, and the 

same number of greasy philosophers, the Ladies H 

(the only little bit of nobility we can raise) and 

Colonel , who represents the amorous part of the 

community. There are also half a dozen young ladies, 
unquestionably the plainest in Europe, and, indeed, I 
might extend my geographical limits for the purposes 
of this comparison. 

All this is out of your line. Think of the wilderness 
of a drawing-room where in the whole horizon there is 
not a duchess or a countess to be seen ! 

Having thus fairly warned you, we have nothing to 

add, my dear Georgiana, but that Mrs. Sydney and I 

shall be very glad to see you and Anne, if at any time 

you have a fancy to come. 

Yours ever, 

Sydney Smith. 
The following unpublished note also belongs to this 



OP THE KEY. SYDNEY SMITH. 317 

period, and will explain itself. It was written to 
satisfy some qualms of conscience experienced by 
Mrs. Smith, after she had acceded to the request of a 
somewhat bold and troublesome person for an intro- 
duction to Lord Lansdowne. 

[XLVI.] 

My dear Lord Lansdowne, — " Pray introduce me 
to Lord Lansdowne." When this is said by a very 
forward person to a lady, you know how extremely 
difficult it is to say " No." Mrs. Sydney was in this 

predicament yesterday when Mr. made this 

petition to her. She has been tormenting herself 
about this, but I said I would explain it, and told her 
that you must have been subjected repeatedly to these 
accidents, and must perfectly understand them as 
almost inevitable. Even I have had persons desirous 
of being introduced to me, and it is not every one 
who could make as good an answer as the late Mrs. 
Humphrey Mildmay. Croker said to her, he wished 
particularly to be introduced to me. " Yes," she said, 
" that may be agreeable to you, but are you sure it 
would be equally agreeable to Mr. Sydney Smith ? " 

Ever yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

Combe-Florey, to quote his own expression, *' bound 
up well with London," and as the roads to the west 
were good, the journey to and fro, even before the age 
of steam, was not an arduous one — at least when gout 
was in abeyance. His periodical visits to town seem 
to have enhanced his love of the country, and his 
letters bear witness to the continual charm of his 



318 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

surrouudings in Somerset. In a letter to Dr. Hol- 
land, written at midsummer from his rural retreat, 
he implores his medical son-in-law to turn his attention 
to that " little curse," the hay-fever, of the effects of 
which he gives the following amusing description : 
" Light, dust, contradiction, an absurd remark, the 
sight of a Dissenter — anything sets me sneezing; and 
if I begin sneezing at twelve, I don't leave off till 
two, and am heard distinctly in Taunton (when the 
wind sets that way), a distance of six miles. * * * If 
consumption is too powerful for physicians, at least 
they should not suffer themselves to be outwitted 
by such little upstart disorders as the hay-fever." ^ 
He usually spent February, March, and July in 
London, as his duties at St. Paul's occupied him 
during those months ; in July, 1835, he states that 
he travelled home in his carriage "with a green parrot 
and the 'Life of Mackintosh.'" "I think," is his 
criticism in a note to Lord Murray, " Robert Mackin- 
tosh has done his father's life very well ; done it by 
putting in as little mortar as possible between the 
layers of stone." At the close of August, he writes 
to another correspondent : " We have had charming 
Aveather; and all who come here, or have been here, 
have been delighted with our little paradise, — for such 
it really is, — except that there is no serpent, and that 
we wear clothes." ^ 

In the autumn he was able to fulfil a promise of 
long standing by taking Mrs. Smith to Paris. They 
were accompanied by their daughter Emily, and their 
son-in-law, Mr. Hibbert. They crossed the Channel 

* Published Correspondence, p. 513. ' Ibid. p. 518. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 319 

in a hurricane, and Sydney Smith relates that, wrapped 
in a cloak, he lay on the deck, and reflected that as he 
had now " so little life to lose, it was of small conse- 
quence whether he was drowned, or died like a resident 
clergyman, from indigestion." ^ Between Calais and 
Paris they travelled — such at least is the statement 
of the vivacious chronicler who was at the head of the 
party — at the primitive speed of five miles an hour, 
and, like everybody else, they were delighted with the 
magnificence of the Gothic churches at Rouen, and 
with the dreamy beauty of the quaint old Norman 
city. They found Paris full of English people, most 
of whom were eager to welcome so distinguished a 
countryman as Sydney Smith, and the visit was full of 
enjoyment, especially to Mrs. Smith, who had never 
seen the French capital before. " I suspect," he wrote 
from Paris, " the Fifth Act of life should be in great 
cities ; it is there, in the loug death of old age, that a 
man most forgets himself and his infirmities ; receives 
the greatest consolation from the attentions of friends, 
and the greatest diversion from external circum- 
stances." ^ 

After a short stay in London, during which he took 
on lease a house in Charles Street, Berkeley Square, 
just across the street from Berkeley Chapel, where, 
as a young man, he had so often preached, and 
" five minutes from the Park, and ten from Dr 
Holland," the beginning of December found him safely 
ensconced in winter quarters at Combe-Florey. The 
journey home was not without incident, in spite of his 
own statement that few are the adventures of a canon 
travelling gently over good roads to his benefice. In 
■ Published Correspondence, p. 520. * Ibid. p. 521 . 



320 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

a letter to Mr. Hollaud descriptive of his experiences 
in ttie Bristol coach, he states that, oddly enough, the 
mayor of that city in 1829, whom he had so mightily 
offended by his sermon in the cathedral on the Catholic 
claims, was his fellow-passenger. Times had changed 
since then, and the worthy alderman had grown more 
tolerant with them, and condescended to exchange 
civilities with the militant churchman, who was terribly 
afraid lest he should stop at the same inn at Reading, 
However, as a loyal man, he stayed at the " Crown," and 
Sydney confesses that, being a rude one, he went on to 
the " Bear." The letter concludes with an amusing 
episode, which he thus recounts : " Being, since my 
travels, very much gallicized in my character, I ordered 
a pint of claret ; I found it incomparably the best wine 
I had ever tasted ; it disappeared with a rapidity 
which surprises me even at this distance of time. The 
next morning, in the coach by eight, with a handsome 
valetudinarian lady, upon whom the coach produced 
the same effect as a steam-packet would do. I pro- 
posed weak warm brandy and water ; she thought, at 
first, it would produce inflammation of the stomach, 
but presently requested to have it warm and not weak, 
and she took it to the last drop, as I did the claret." ^ 
Notwithstanding his frequent absence from Somerset, 
he kept up neighbourly intercourse with many of the 
leading families in and around Taunton. One of his 
acquaintances in that town was Dr. Blake, a well- 
known medical man, and an ardent politician of the 
Radical type. The doctor in religion was a staunch 
Unitarian. Hearing that he was unwell, the Rector 

* PubHshed Correspondence, p 524. 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 321 

of Combe-Florey looked in as lie passed tiirougli the 
town, to inquire after his health. " Oh, Mr. Smith," 
exclaimed Dr. Blake, " I am far from well, I have 
got a cold, aguish feeling all over me, and thouo-h I 
sit by a good fire, I cannot keep myself warm." "I 
can cure you, doctor," said his visitor as he prepared 
to go ; " cover yourself with the Thirty-nine Articles, 
and you will soon have a delicious glow all over you !" 

On another occasion, dining one summer evening in 
the neighbourhood of Combe-Florey at the house of a 
friend, where a pleasant party had been invited to meet 
him, a youthful and somewhat conceited officer of the 
Scots Gi-reys, a troop of which regiment was at that 
time quartered in Taunton, was of the company. It 
-was a beautiful and sultry evening, and as the repast 
proceeded, the buzzing of a bee which had dropped in 
at the open window — attracted doubtless by the fruit 
and flowers — greatly disturbed the young soldier's peace 
of mind. Turning to a lady who sat next to him, he 
exclaimed in peevish and affected tones, " If there is 
one thing more than another that I hate, it is the 
buzzing of a bee at dinner-time." Sydney Smith 
immediately remarked in an undertone to his fair 
neighbour, " I suppose, madam, if a hornet came in 
the captain would sell out ! " 

He often drove over to Taunton, where the Combe- 
Florey successor to the " Immortal," a much more 
stylish equipage, was a familiar object in the streets of 
the town. The following recollections of his visits 
there, though slight, are characteristic and amusing : — 

[xLVii.] Rolls Park, Chigwell, Essex, May 29th, 1884. 

Very distinctly do I recall the portly figure of 



322 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Sydney Smith seated in his large yellow chariot — then 
a fashionable style of carriage — the full-sized head, the 
face indicative, as it now presents itself to my mind's 
eye, of mental power, of kindliness, and of the spirit of 
humour which possessed him. 

My father, who was a timber merchant in Taunton, 
took a deep interest in politics through the exciting 
days of the Reform agitation of half a century ago, 
working hard with Sydney Smith, Sir Thomas B. Leth- 
bridge, and others on the Liberal side. 

I can just remember the delighted and exultant state 
of mind in which he returned from the county meeting 
at Taunton, at which Sydney Smith produced the far- 
famed fable of Dame Partington and the Atlantic. He 
had stood close to the speaker's elbow, and in after- 
years he often described in vivid words the telling 
action with which the old lady's energetic but futile 
mopping was illustrated. 

This brilliant man was not brilliant only ; there was 
in his character, as I conceive, an unusually substan- 
tial basis of sound common sense. This was not only 
visible in his writings, but also prominent in his prac- 
tical life. When in residence at Combe-Florey, his 
calls on business at my father's wharf were not unfre- 
quent, and it used to be a matter of common remark 
how definite and clearly expressed his instructions 
always were. 

Even under such circumstances he sometimes found 
food for his fun. In my father's employment was a 
queer old fellow, a sawyer, out of whom Mr. Smith one 
day discovered that some amusement was to be obtained. 
This fact was not forgotten when he came again, until 
at length " Brooks " got quite frightened, and kept as 



OF THE KEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 323 

far as possible out of the way. I remember one day 
the old man's catching sight of" the well-known chariot 
nearing the wharf gates, and, twitching up the waist- 
band of his breeches, bustling off to the shelter of his 
saw-pit with the cry, in tones of almost agony, 
" There's Sir Sydney a-coming ! There's Sir Sydney 
a-coming ! " 

Edward A. Ball.^ 

At no period were absent friends in the north for- 
gotten ; and although year by year his powers of loco- 
motion became more and more impeded by recurring 
and most weakening attacks of gout, he always availed 
himself of any chance opportunity of renewing the 
delightful intercourse of former years. Sometimes, 
when writing to those with whom he was per- 
fectly at his ease, he would enclose a set of verses 
which he had composed for their amusement and his 
own. The following unpublished lines were presented 
by him to the Hon, Mrs. Henry Howard, and bear in 
his own handwriting the title of 

[xLYiii] THE POETICAL MEDICINE CHEST. 

With store of powdered rhubarb we begin ; 
(To leave out powdered rhubarb were a sin), 
Pack mild magnesia deep within the chest ; 
And glittering gum from Araby the blest ; 
And keep, oh lady, keep within thy reach 
The slimy surgeon, blood-devouring leech. 

^ Mr. Ball, to the regret of a wide circle of friends, who justly 
esteemed him, died suddenly a few weeks after the above letter was 
written. 



324 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Laurel-born camphor, opiate drugs prepare, 
They banish pain, and calm consuming care. 
Glauber and Epsom salts their aid combine, 
Translucent streams of castor-oil be thine. 
And gentle manna in thy bottles shine. 
If morbid spot of septic sore invade, 
By heaven-sent bark the morbid spot is stayed ; 
When with black bile hepatic regions swell, 
With subtle calomel the plague expel. 
Anise and mint with strong ^olian sway, 
Intestine storms of flatulence allay, 
And ipecachuana clears the way. 
I know thee well, thoa antimonial power. 
And to thee fly in that heart-rending hour, 
When feverish patients heave their laden breath, 
And all is sickness, agony, and death ! 
Soda and potash change the humours crude, 
When hoven parsons swell with luscious food. 
Spare not in eastern blasts when babies die. 
The wholesale vigour of the Spanish fly. 
From timely torture seek thy infant's rest, 
And spread the poison on his labouring breast. 
And so, fair lady, when in evil hour 
Less prudent mothers mourn some faded flower, 
Six Howards valiant and six Howards fair, 
Shall live and love thee, and reward thy care. 

Sydney Smith. 

Some of his brief notes to his friends, dashed off 
quickly, in the midst of more engrossing occupations, 
are very bright and witty. Most people will recall, 
for example, the famous excuse which he sent to 
Mr. Longman, the publisher, in reply to an invitation 
to dinner : " I cannot accept your invitation, for my 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY" SMITH. 325 

house is full of country cousius. I wish they were 
ouce removed." ^ The following notes, which have not 
hitherto been published, are characteristic examples of 
his style, and bear witness to the high spirits which 
usually marked him : — 

[xLix.] 18, Stratford Place, June 6th, 1833. 

Dear Geoegiana, — You use me very ill in not send- 
ing me the receipt for the lemon-peel water. I verily 
believe I should have recovered two days ago if I had 
received it. My premature decease will be entirely 
attributable to you. Yours truly, 

Sydney Smith. 
MY EPITAPH. 

This horrible slaughter 

Was entirely owing to the Archbishop's daughter, 

Who would not give him the receipt for lemon water. 

Miss G. Harcourt. 

[l.] 33, Charles Street, June 27th, 1836. 

Dear Loed Lansdowne, — Many thanks for the two 
books of Hallam's, which I return this day, having 
received from them a good deal of instruction, clear of 
every particle of amusement. 

Ever yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

In reply to an invitation to dinner, which he was 
unable to accept, instead of the usual hackneyed " pre- 
vious engagement," he despatched this graceful little 
note to his friend, Lady Davy : — 

[li.] 33, Charles Street, Berkeley Square, 

February 25th, 1837. 

Dear Lady Davy, — Our tastes (pardon my vanity) 
are so similar that I like to meet all whom you like to 
* " Life of the Rev. R. H. Barham," vol. i. p. 283. 



326 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

invite. My inclinations, however, must remain un- 
gratified on the 4th, as I am engaged to dine with 
Lord Tankerville. 

Body and mind will tlius divided be, 

I dine with Tankerville, and think of thee. 

Sydney Smith. 

Early in 1837 the " Letters to Archdeacon Singleton 
on the Ecclesiastical Commission " began to appear, 
and in them he exerted all his remarkable powers of 
reason, wit, and satire against measures which he 
stigmatized as rash, foolish, and imprudent. The 
Commission, which had been originated by Sir Robert 
Peel, and was supported by the Whigs under Lord 
Melbourne and Lord John Russell, aimed at bringing 
about some much-needed ecclesiastical reforms. Many 
glaring abuses in the Church were exposed through 
its investigations, and a number of sinecure offices 
connected with the cathedrals were abolished. The 
incredible inequalities which existed between some of 
the sees (the Bishop of Durham had a revenue of 
19,480/., whilst the Bishop of Rochester had to be 
content with 1400/.) were diminished, and the wealth 
of the Church underwent, to some extent at least, a pro- 
cess of redistribution. The boundaries of each diocese 
were revised, questions arising out of the growth and 
removal of the population were fully considered, and 
the new sees of Manchester and Ripon were founded. 

The incomes of deans were also brought into 
greater conformity with each other, and the num- 
ber of canons attached to the cathedrals was 
reduced. The funds which accrued to the Ecclesias- 
tical Commissioners were applied by them to the 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 327 

augmentation of small livings in populous parishes, 
to tlie building of churches in the working-class 
suburbs of manufacturing towns, and in any other 
way which might seem desirable in order to make 
Chm'ch work more eflficient. The Commissioners were 
also instrumental in bringing about a much-needed, 
reform — the abolition of the right of one clergyman 
to hold two livings unless they were within a distance 
of ten miles of each other. 

Sydney Smith did not for a moment deny the need 
of ecclesiastical reform ; on the contrary, he was of 
opinion that it was absolutely necessary, and ought 
not to be postponed. He objected, however, to the 
constitution of the Commission, and to the exclusion 
from a council which was to deal with every branch 
of churchmen, — bishops, dignitaries, and parochial 
clerg3^men, — of the two lower orders of the cleigy. He 
regarded many of the proposals of the Commissioners 
as short-sighted in policy and hostile to the best 
interests of the Church, and he looked upon a scheme 
which provided for the wants of the poor clergy by 
lessening the rewards to which they might hope 
eventually to climb, as a singular evasion of duty. 

He maintained that the curates themselves, all of 
whom hope to draw great prizes, did not care for a 
paltry improvement of their poverty if it could only 
be gained by the wholesale confiscation of cathedral 
property and the chief rewards of the Church. He 
declared that, as a matter of fact, the great emolu- 
ments of the profession were already within the reach 
of the lowest ranks of the community, and that 
butchers, bakers, and publicans were constantly seeing 
their clever children elevated to the mitre. In sup- 



328 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

port of this statement, he drew a rapid sketch of the 
triumphant rise and progress of young Crumpet' s 
fortunes as he advances from his father's bakehouse 
step by step until he is safely landed in an episcopal 
palace : " Let a respectable baker drive through the 
city from the west-end of the town, and let him cast 
an eye on the battlements of Northumberland House ; 
has his little muffin-faced son the smallest chance of 
getting in among the Percies, enjoying a share of 
their luxury and splendour, and of chasing the deer 
with horn and hound upon the Cheviot Hills ? But 
let him drive his alum-steeped loaves a little further 
till he reaches St. Paul's Churchyard, and all his 
thoughts are changed when he sees that beautiful 
fabric; it is not impossible that his little penny roll 
may be introduced into that splendid oven. Young 
Crumpet is sent to school — ^takes to his books — spends 
the best years of his life, as all eminent Englishmen 
do, in making Latin verses — knows that the crwn in 
crumpet is long, and the j:)e^ short — goes to the Uni- 
versity — gets a prize for an essay on the Dispersion 
of the Jews — takes orders — becomes a bishop's chap- 
lain — ^has a young nobleman for his pupil — publishes 
a useless classic and a serious call to the unconverted 
— and then goes through the Elysian transitions of 
prebendary, dean, prelate, and the long train of purple, 
profit, and power." ^ 

He contended that the whole mass of property which 
the Commission proposed to confiscate would only 
make the poor clergy a trifling degree less poor, whilst 
it destroyed in almost every case the powerful stimulus 

' Second Letter to Archdeacon Singleton. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 329 

of hope in tlie breasts of young ecclesiastics. He 
ridiculed the idea of a Christian bishop proposing in 
cold blood to create a thousand new livings of 130/. a 
year each ; in other words, " to call into existence a 
thousand of the most unhappy men on the face of the 
earth, the sons of the poor, without hope, without the 
assistance of private fortune, chained to the soil, 
ashamed to live with their inferiors, unfit for the 
society of the better classes, and dragging about the 
English curse of poverty, with the smallest hope that 
they can ever shake it off." ^ 

The Commissioners, of course, expected to secure for 
130Z. a year a thousand good and enthusiastic men, 
each of whom combined in himself all moral, physical, 
and intellectual advantages. Without exception, each 
one of the thousand — so ran the official dream — was to 
be " a learned man, dedicating himself intensely to the 
care of his parish, of charming manners and dignified 
deportment, six feet two inches high, beautifully pro- 
portioned, with a magnificent countenance, expressive 
of all the cardinal virtues and the Ten Commandments, 
and it was asked, with an air of triumph, if such a man as 
this will fall into contempt on account of his poverty ? " 
Sydney Smith was prepared to say, " Certainly not, 
if you can get the men for the money," an achieve- 
ment which he however regarded as rather difficult. 
But substitute for this ideal personage " an average, 
ordinary, uninteresting minister — obese, dumpy, neither 
ill-natured nor good-natured, neither learned nor igno- 
rant, striding over the stiles to church, with a second- 
rate wife, dusty and deliquescent, and four parochial 

® Third Letter to ArcMeacon Singleton. 



330 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

children, full of catechism and bread and butter," and 
how rests the question then ? 

He declared that the smaller livings in the Church 
were held, as a rule, by young men who looked for- 
ward to a college or family living, or were the sons 
of people of substance, and these young men were 
paid " once by money and three times by hope." If, 
however, the legitimate rewards of the profession were 
seriously reduced both in number and in value, young 
men of family would not feel the same inclination to 
enter the Church, and divinity students would have to 
be gathered wholesale from the ranks of the poorer 
and less educated classes. 

He protested against the notion that deans and 
chapters had made a worse use of their patronage 
than bishops ; and he argued that it was eminently 
unfair to exclude the former from the Commission in 
the first instance, and next to confiscate their revenues. 
He pointed out that the Prelate Commissioners, in spite 
of their new-born zeal to provide for the spiriiual 
destitution of the masses, were careful not to sacrifice a 
shilling of the aggregate income of the episcopal order 
to that purpose, but were eager to relieve it with pro- 
perty to which they had no claim. " Is not this as if 
one, affected powerfully by a charity sermon, were to 
put his hands in another man's pocket, and cast, from 
what he had extracted, a liberal contribution into the 
plate ? " It was a little too bad, he thought, for these 
stately ecclesiastics to want to sacrifice with -other 
men's hetacombs, and at the same time to enjoy the 
twofold character of personal disinterestedness and 
martyrdom to unjust spoliation. Idle prebendaries of 
Canterbury or St. Paul's might make the Church un- 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 331 

popular ; but wliy not, he asked, as the existing pre- 
bendaries vanished from the scene, annex their stalls 
to some large and populous parish, and so compel 
their successors to combine labour with wealth ? The 
Ecclesiastical Commissioners, moreover, aimed at 
abolishing many offices in the Church, which he 
deemed might, with a little care and thought, have 
been turned to purposes of national utility and 
education. 

Sydney Smith has frequently been accused of having 
had interested motives in the opposition with which 
he met the Ecclesiastical Commission, but such a 
charge is more easily made than proved ; and those 
who look with unprejudiced eyes at the circumstances 
of the case are likely to arrive at precisely the opposite 
conclusion. He was old and wealthy, and had neither 
sons nor near relatives in the Church, and therefore 
there was no selfish end concealed beneath his attacks, 
and it is not more certain that his opposition was mis- 
taken than that the motives which prompted it were 
pure. No such evils as he dreaded have fallen upon 
the Church ; and if its worldly value as a profession 
has declined, its true honour as a spiritual vocation 
has been correspondingly advanced. Sydney Smith 
approached the question too much on the temporal 
side, and not even his powers of wit and eloquence 
were sufficient recompense for that fact; nevertheless, 
it remains true that " as long as the English language 
endures, the memory of the Ecclesiastical Commis- 
sioners will be handed down in the humorous and 
argumentative letters of their great antagonist." ^ 

» "Canon Molesworth's History of England, 1830-74," vol. i. 
chap. vi. p. 391. 



332 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

When the question had arrived at a further stage, 
and various modifications of the original proposals had 
been made, he wrote as follows to the Marquis of 
Lansdowne : — 

[lii.] Taunton, Sept. 14tli, 1838. 

Dear Lord Lansdowne. — Do what you like with 
the Church, it will never make the smallest alteration 
in my respect and regard for you. All that I require 
is full permission in shilling pamphlets to protest that 
we are the most injured, persecuted, and ill-treated 
persons on the face of the earth. Against Lord Holland 
and you personally I could not, and would not, write 
a single syllable, and of course you must both laugh 
at such nonsense as I put forth from time to time. 

After all, the Residence and Plurality Bill was (as 
it came out of the Commission) a very bad Bill. I 
could point out eleven or twelve very material points, 
bearing strongly upon the happiness of the parochial 
clergy, which have been omitted or completely changed 
in the passage of the Bill through Parliament ; to all 
of these I objected, and though I do not of course 
imagine that I had weight and authority to produce 
these changes, yet it shows that my hostility was not 
frivolous and vexatious. 

The Bill is now a very good Bill. The original Bill 
was bad. because John Russell, legislating on what it is 
not likely he could understand, took his information from 
bishops, who were sure to mislead him because they 
consulted their own power. In the same way I am sure 
that his Dean and Chapter Bill may be very materially 
improved, and that the errors it contains proceed from 
the same source. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 333 

Many thanks for the venison, which arrived here 
safely to-day, and apparently in very good condition. 
We have had a ffreat run of blue-stockino; ladies here 
this summer, and are expecting more. I have had a 
fit of the gout, which I chased away speedily with 
colchicum. Are you going to make your promised tour 
to Lynton? If so, pray come and see us, you and 
yours. 

I am very much obliged by your good-natured 
and sensible letter, which gave me great pleasure and 
satisfaction ; for I should have been heartily sorry 
that my defence of my profession should have been 
construed into the most distant intention of ill-will 
and hostility to you ; and to show you how little I 
consider the venison as deprecatory, I will put into 
my next pamphlet any abuse of yourself which you 
choose to dictate, but decline entirely to insert any of 
my own. 

Ever sincerely yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

A few days later he wrote to Miss Harcourt, to give 
her the benefit of his own and the parish clerk's opinion 
of a certain well-known preacher who had made a 
passing appearance in the pulpit of Combe-Florey 
Church : — 

[liii.] Combe-Florey, Taunton, Sept. 30tb, 1838. 

My deau Geoegiana, will have described to 

you our place, and described it, I hope, in a manner that 
will give you a disposition to visit it when an opportu- 
nity offers. You know that you are a great favourite 
here, but that is a position which has no novelty for 
you. Mr. Hodgson, of the Bounty Office, is here ; we 



334 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

sigh over the temporal prospects of the Church, and 
that state of labour and poverty which the Whigs are 
preparing for us, and for which erroneous reason ers 
suppose we were intended. 

We like your Boreal Bourdaloue. If he will limit 
himself to thirty minutes, and carry up a book into the 
pulpit in conformity with our well-known habits, he 
would beat all the popular preachers in London. My 
clerk said to me, " Your honour is not fit to light a 
candle to his honour ! " He is a handsome man also, 
and has a kind of Ten Commandments look about him, 
which is very suitable to a preacher. 

God bless you, dear Georgiana, 

Your sincere friend, 

Sydney Smith. 

In the early part of the following year he repubHshed, 
in a collected form, most of his contributions to the 
Edinhurgh Review ; the articles which were thus given 
anew to the world were sixty-five in number, and they 
cover the period between October, 1802, and March, 
1827. Scarcely a number of the great northern 
quarterly appeared during the first quarter of the 
century in which Sydney Smith had not something 
racy and original to say concerning the topics which 
in those years engaged public attention. There is 
great variety in the subjects which he passes under 
review, and not a little versatility is shown in their 
treatment ; and whilst it must be frankly admitted 
that his wisdom is not always conspicuous, or his 
judgment infallible, his wit never flags, and the 
strength and beauty of his style continues undiminished 
to the end. Whether the subject was Mr. Fox or 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 335 

Dr. Parr, Hannah Moore or Madame D'Epinay, Botany 
Bay or Palestine, Irish Bulls or English Man-traps, 
the Poor Laws or the Poor Clergy, Climbing-boys or 
the Treadmill, the Catholic Claims or Methodists 
and Missions, Caleb in search of a Wife or Female 
Education, Mad Quakers or Persecuting Bishops, he 
was always humorous, manly, matter-of-fact, and 
independent. 

There can be no question that Sydney Smith did 
more during the period of his connection with the 
Edinburgh Bevieiv for the extension of civil and reli- 
gious liberty than most people even now are prepared 
to admit. Against nearly all the abuses of the time 
he protested with straightforwnrd and honest boldness, 
and sought to broaden public opinion on social ques- 
tions, and to evoke a sentiment in the breasts of the 
people of brotherly kindness and manly self-respect. 
Writing to Jeffrey, he dwells with just pride on the 
stand which they had together made against many 
forms of political and social oppression. " It must 
be to you," are his words, " as I am sure it is to 
me, a great pleasure to see so many improvements 
taking place, and so many abuses destroyed ; abuses 
upon which you with cannon and mortars, and I with 
sparrow-shot, have been playing for so many years." ^ 
When his " Contributions to the Edinburgh Review " 
were republished, it is pleasant to find him in the 
narrow limits of one brief letter to a lady declaring 
that his old literary chief is " one of the best as well 
as one of the ablest men in the country. Jeffrey's 
friendship is to you — honour, safety, and amusement."^ 
Then, after a graceful allusion to a presentation copy 

^ Published Correspondence, p. 442. ^ Ibid, p. 533. 



336 



THE LIFE AND TIMES 



of the book, which he begs his fair correspondent to 
accept, he adds an explanatory sentence in regard to 
it of wider and more permanent interest : " I printed 
my reviews to show, if I could, that I had not passed 
my life merely in making jokes, but that I had made 
use of what little powers of pleasantry I might be 
endowed with to discountenance bad, and to encourage 
liberal and wise, principles." " Ah, Mr. Smith," ex- 
claimed a Romish dignitary to Sydney after one of his 
quaint sayings had bounded forth never to be forgotten, 
"you have such a way of putting things !" Let it be 
remembered by all who know how to appreciate fear- 
less and disinterested labours for the pubhc good, that 
Sydney Smith habitually and without stint employed 
his wonderful " way of putting things" — to put things 
risfht. 




COMBE-FtOEEY CHUKCH. 



or THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 337 



CHAPTER XITI. 

1839—1843. 
Politics — Society — Wealth — Fame. 

"The success of my pamplilet has been very great. 
I always told you I was a clever man, and you never 
would believe me," ^ wrote Sydoey Smith to one of 
his frie*ads in the spring of 1839. The pamphlet to 
which he alludes was that on the " Ballot," and it was 
the last he ever wrote. On the subject of the ballot 
as a panacea for political corruption, philosophical 
Radicals like George Grote, and wild Chartists like 
Feargus O'Connor, were of one mind. The Radical 
Party were greatly disappointed, because of its omis- 
sion, when Lord John Russell introduced the Govern- 
ment proposals for reform; and it is a matter of 
history that, if Lord Durham could have had his way 
in the Grey Cabinet, the question would have been 
settled in the affirmative half a century earlier than 
was actually the case. Mr. Grote, whom Sydney 
Smith described as an honest and able man who would 
have proved an important politician if the world had 
been a chessboard, pressed the question year after 
year upon the attention of Parliament, and the revela- 

^ Published Correspondence, p. 547. 



338 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

tions concerning bribery and corruption whicli were 
constantly coming to light did more than speeches 
and arguments to convert the nation to the principle 
of secret voting, which thousands, however, persisted 
in regarding as an un-English mode of procedure. 
For many years the present Premier opposed the 
introduction of the ballot, and it was not until the 
exposures which followed the general election of 
1868 that Mr. Gladstone gave in his adhesion to the 
scheme. 

Sydney Smith was too wise a man, and had too 
much faith in human advancement, to regard the 
triumph of the Reform Bill as an end of all contro- 
versy. He wanted, however, a little breathing-time 
for the country and himself after the bloodless revolu- 
tion of 1832, and he deemed that the generation to 
which he belonged should not rush off into battle 
again, but be content with securing the magnificent 
spoils which had already fallen to their swords, leaving 
other victories to be won hereafter by " those little 
legislators who are now receiving every day after 
dinner a cake or a plum, in happy ignorance of Mr. 
Grote and his ballot." The majority of the Liberal 
Party in 1839 shared his convictions, and only the 
practical working of the Reform Bill at last convinced 
statesmen of the necessity for adopting more stringent 
precautions against political intimidation. 

He maintained that a tenant dismissed for a fair 
and just cause often endeavoured to make a martyr of 
himself with the public, and having ploughed badly, and 
paid badly, went about declaring that he had been 
turned adrift because of his vote. He believed that 
inquisition into the political opinions of tradesmen 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 339 

was very rare, and that shopkeepers as a class were 
apt to cry out before they were hurt. " A man who 
sees after an election one of his customers buying a 
pair of gloves on the opposite side of the way, roars out 
that his honesty will make him a bankrupt, and the 
country papers are filled with letters from Brutus, 
Publicola, Hampden, and Pym." He ridicules the idea 
that the ballot will put an end to canvassing, and he 
regards it as tyrannical to compel those persons to 
conceal their votes who hate all concealment, and who 
glory in the cause they support. " Who brought 
that mischievous profligate villain into Parliament? 
Who opposed the man whom we all know to be one 
of the first men in the country ? Are these fair and 
useful questions, to be veiled hereafter in impenetrable 
mystery ? ' ' 

The compulsory application of the ballot to all 
electors seems to him as if a few cowards, who could 
only fight behind walls and houses, were to prevent 
the whole regiment from showing a bold front in the 
field. " What right," he asks, " has the coward to 
degrade me who am no coward, and put me in the 
same shameful predicament with himself ? It is really 
a curious condition that all men must imitate the 
defects of a few, in order that it ma}^ not be known who 
have the natural imperfection, and who put it on from 
conformity. In this way, in former days, to hide the 
grey hair of the old, everybody was forced to wear 
powder and pomatum." The conclusion at which he 
arrives is that, if the ballot is adopted, the controlling 
power of Parliament is lost, and the members are at 
the mercy of the returning oSicer; and therefore to 
institute secret voting is to apply a very dangerous 



340 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

innovation to what be considers is after all only a 
temporary evil. 

Soon after the pamphlet on the ballot had appeared, 
he wrote an amusing note on the subject to Lord 
Durham in reply to an invitation to dinner : — 

[liv 1 33, Charles Street, Berkeley Square, 

*- '^ March 3rd, 1839. 

Dear Lord Dueham, — I dine with Sir Francis 
Chantrey on the 13th, or should have great pleasure 
in dining with you. Lady Grey writes me word that 
my pamphlet on the ballot made Lord Grey laugh 
heartily, which is to me the pleasantest thing I have 
heard about it. When I come out with my universal 
suffrage, I hope to put liim in convulsions. 

Ever sincerely yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

The summer of 1839 brought with it an unexpected 
accession of fortune, and for the remainder of his life 
Sydney Smith was a wealthy man. Twelve years 
before, in a letter to a friend, he had remarked, " The 
Smith's are a stiff-necked generation, and yet they 
have all got rich but I. Courtenay, they say, has 
150,000/., and he only keeps— a cat!"^ By the 
sudden death of Courtenay, without a will, he found 
himself entitled to a third of his brother's fortune, 
and thus he was recompensed at last for the sacrifice 
which he had made as a youth, in far-off Oxford days, to 
pay a certain little spendthrift's Winchester debts. He 
immediately took a large and handsome house in Green 
Street, Grosvenor Square, and it continued to be his 

■ Published Correspondence, p. 463. 



OF THE BEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 341 

London home until his death. It was to this house, 
which he declared to be the essence of all that is com- 
fortable, that he was accustomed to welcome many 
rising men of a younger generation, towards ail of 
whom his attitude was one of unfailing kindness and 
goodwill. 

The art of the novelist did not find excessive 
favour in his eyes, but Charles Dickens completely 
won his heart with "Nicholas Nickleby;" and he 
told Sir George Phillips, in 1838, that he stood out 
against Dickens as long as he could, but that he had 
been conquered by him at last. One of the most 
amusing notes in his published correspondence was 
addressed to Dickens in the following year, and in it 
he states that the Miss Berrys had commissioned him 
to request the novelist to dine with them in order that 
he might meet three clerical gentlemen, " all equally 
well-known to you — a Canon of St. Paul's, the Rector 
of Combe-Florey, and. the Vicar of Halberton." ^ 

About this time allusions to Macaulay, whom he de- 
scribes as that "book in breeches," begin to appear in 
his letters, and there are references also to Carlyle, 
about whom he feels " very curious." He admired Ma- 
caulay's versatility, and believed that he had a genuine 
love of his country. " He is certainly more agree- 
able since his return from India. His enemies mio-ht. 
perhaps, have said before (though I never did so) that 
he talked rather too much ; but now he has occasional 
flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly 
delightful. * * * Oh, yes ! we both talk a great deal, 
but I don't believe Macaulay ever did hear my voice ! 
Sometimes, when I have told a good story, I have 
^ Published Correspondence, p. 547. 



342 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

thought to myself, Poor Macaulay ! he will be very 
sorry some day to have missed hearing that." * 

Macaulay undoubtedly merited the sly hit, for he 
was apt to monopolize conversation, and his talk was 
frequently too pedantic and academical for general 
society. It must at the same time be confessed that 
Sydney Smith himself was also inclined to take the 
lion's share of conversation, but, unlike Macaulay, he 
talked in his inimitably sparkling and witty fashion 
of the passing events of the hour, or else seized upon 
a more serious subject in which every one in the room 
might reasonably be expected to feel a degree of in- 
terest. 

The two men met now and then at the house 
of Samuel Rogers, " that anomalous personage, a rich 
— poet ! " as Leigh Hunt was accustomed to describe 
the author of the " Pleasures of Memory ;" and on 
such occasions the host's brilhant collection of 
piquant anecdotes was frequently crowded out by the 
sonorous vivacity of his guests. " Nobody can get a 
word in when you are here ! " was the muttered growl 
with which the eclipsed poet relieved his overcharged 
feelings when the room rang with laughter at one of 
Sydney Smith's droll remarks. But if Sydney Smith 
sometimes exasperated Rogers, Macaulay quite p^s fre- 
quently ruffled the composure of Sydney Smith, for 
Mrs. Malcolm relates that she heard the latter declare 
to Rogers at a breakfast party at the poet's house, 
"I wish I could write poetry like you, Rogers. I 
would write an Inferno, and I would put Macaulay 
amongst a number of disputants, and gag him ! " 

Society in the country, especially as age crept on, 

* Memoir of Sydney Smith," chap, xi., pp. 234 — 236. 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 343 

bored him at times not a little, as the following note, 
written in the winter of 1838-39 to his friend Mrs. 
Austin, will show : — 

.[I'V.] Combe- Florey. 

My dear Mrs. Austin, — I have been dining out 
two or three times in the country — a state of some 
suffering, but it reminds you of the value of your 
own society, and prevents a great deal of anger and 
heart-burning which the seclusion of any individual 
produces among his neighbours. You, who are re- 
velling in the luxuries of Mayfair, may spare a moment 
of commiseration for diners-out in West Somerset- 
shire. Mrs. Sydney has recovered her general health, 
but her eyes are become very weak. How far the 
virtuous patience of women exceeds that of men ! The 
Hibberts and their children are with us, and as we 
have every luxury and comfort which can keep off the 
evils of life, we shall, I hope, get through the winter 
tolerably well. To see you again will be like the re- 
surrection of flowers in the spring. The bitterness 
of solitude (I shall say) is past. 

God bless you, dear Mrs. Austin, 

Sydney Smith. 

During the closing years of his life, when his fre- 
quent residence in London made him more accessible 
to general society, men of all ranks and conditions 
eagerly availed themselves of the privilege of his com- 
pany, and his house in Green Street became a well- 
known political and literary resort. Occasionally, in 
conversation over the breakfast or dinner-table, he 
would relate to his guests charming snatches of his 



of^- 



344 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

experience in former years, and sometimes it chanced 
that George Ticknor or Henry Crabb Robinson was 
present to play to the best of their ability the part 
of James Boswell. Ticknor states that at one little 
breakfast-party at Sydney Smith's, at which Hallam, 
Tytler, and himself formed the guests, their host told 
them he would never be a contributor to the Edin- 
burgh Review on the common business footing. " When 
I wrote an article, I used to send it to Jeffrey, and 
waited till it came out; immediately after which I 
enclosed to him a bill in these words, or words like 
them: ' Francis Jeffrey, Esq., to Rev. Sydney Smith: 
To a very wise and witty article on such a subject, 
so many sheets, at forty-five guineas a sheet,' and 
the money always came."^ 

It is not too much to say that there is scarcely 
a biography or volume of reminiscences, which deals 
with the period represented by the closing years of 
Sydney Smith's life, which has not something to tell 
concerning his happy sayings and doings, and which 
does not reflect the mingled admiration and affection 
which those who knew him best entertained towards 
him. 

The year 1840 opened brightly, and as the days 
began again to lengthen he declared it was the only 
sensible spring which he remembered — " a real March 
of intellect." When any one asked after his health 
he would exclaim, with a smile, " I am tolerably well, 
but intolerably old ! " " We do not go to town," 
he wrote to Lady Morley, " until after the Queen's 
marriage, in order that we may avoid hymeneal and 

® " Life, Letters, and Journals of G-eorge Ticknor," vol. ii. chap. v. 
p. 123. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



345 



bridesmaid conversation." The illness of Mrs. Smith, 
however, took him to Brighton early in the summer, 
a place which he advised all rich and rational people 
living in the metropolis to take small doses of from 
time to time. In July he was back at Combe- Florey, 
and at work amongst his parishioners, and in August 
he was cheered by a visit from his friend, Mr. Monckton 
Milnes, (Lord Houghton). 




MRS. geote's sketch of combe-floeey eectoey. 

Mrs. Grote also came to Somerset at the end of the 
month, and it was on the occasion of this visit that 
she made the accompanying sketch of the parsonage, 
and in the foreground she has depicted her host en- 
gaged in animated conversation with one of his faithful 
retainers. The original picture is a beautiful water- 
colour drawing, and it is here reproduced by per- 
mission of Miss Holland. On the back of the frame 



346 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

of tlie picture Mrs. Grote lias herself inscribed the 
following words, " Drawing made by Mrs. Grote in 
1840, of Combe-Florey Parsonage, near Taunton, the 
incumbent at that date being the Rev. Sydney Smith, 
Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's Cathedral. Pre- 
sented by Mrs. Grote to his granddaughters, De- 
cember 24th, 1872, in memory of their great and good 
ancestor." Mrs. Grote, whom he sometimes styled 
" the Radical Queen," amused herself, he declared, 
with horticulture and democracy — the most approved 
methods of growing cabbages and destroying kings.^ 
The autumn found him in great physical distress 
from a severe attack of gout, to which complaint was 
now added an unwelcome companion in the form of 
violent asthma ; Mrs. Smith also seemed to be losing 
rapidly the good effects of the sea-breezes at Brighton, 
for, in a letter to Sir Roderick Murchison, he says, 
" Mrs. Sydney has eight distinct illnesses, and I have 
nine. We take something every hour, and pass the 
mixture from one to another." ' One day, when Mur- 
chison was dilating in grave tones on recent scientific 
discoveries, his friend, the canon, met him with the 
unexpected remark, " Your Silurian system is all very 
well, Murchison, but I shall think nothing of you till 
you have discovered a woman in granite ! " 

The death of Lord Holland, which occurred at the 
end of October, was an event which moved him deeply. 

His own references to the removal of one who had 
been a true friend to him for more than thirty years 
were very touching, " It is indeed a great loss to me ; 
but I have learned to live as a soldier does in war, 

* Published Correspondence, p, 558. ' Ibid., p. 557. 



OF THE KEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 347 

expecting that on any one moment tlie best and 
dearest may be killed before his eyes.^ 

The winter of 1840 was spent at Combe-Florey, 
and as his children and grandchildren gathered around 
him, and he had also " two months' holiday from 
gout," the dark days passed rapidly on in the society 
of his family, and in the midst of his work. His 
delicate sympathy with the poor, and his diligence 
in visiting the sick, knew no abatement, and his re- 
turn to the parsonage from London was always hailed 
with gladness by old and young. His practical con- 
cern for the welfare of the people was manifested 
in a variety of ways, and nothing which was for the 
advantage of his poor neighbours was beneath his 
notice. As a country clergyman he had witnessed 
the very great hardships inflicted upon the poor 
through the defective weights and measures of dis- 
honest shopkeepers, and he accordingly addressed a 
petition to the Somerset magistrates assembled at. 
quarter sessions to rectify this abuse. The matter 
was at once taken up, and the law was enforced, and 
the poor labourer's loaf, in years when corn was dear, 
was no longer habitu-ally under weight. 

The spring found him once more in active duty at 
St. Paul's, and eager also to renew his intercourse 
with his friends. 

[lvi.] March 12th, 1841. 

Dear Moore, — I have a breakfast of philosophers 
to-morrow at ten punctually ; muffins and metaphysics, 
crumpets and contradiction. Will you come ? 

Sydney Smith. 

« " Memoir of Sydney Smith," chap. x. p. 186. 



348 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

It is easy to understand tHe alacrity of the poet's 
response to such a summons, for Moore was a great 
admirer of his clerical friend, and used to declare that 
as a conversational wit he vanquished all the men he 
had ever met ; indeed, he agreed with Mrs. Jameson 
that Sydney Smith's wit generally involved a thought 
worth remembering for its own sake, as well as for 
the brilliant vehicle in which it was conveyed. 

During the last few years of Sydney Smith's life, 
the Athena3um Club formed one of his favourite 
resorts, and there he might frequently have been seen 
chatting pleasantly with friends old and new. The 
chief literary club of the metropolis, with its noble 
library and unusual social advantages, had naturally 
powerful attractions for such a man, and, being him- 
self of an eminently " clubable " disposition, he was 
extremely popular within its walls. The social inter- 
course which he enjoyed in London was rendered still 
more agreeable because it was in marked contrast 
with his ordinary life at Combe-Florey ; and the 
quietude of a country life in a secluded Somerset 
parsonage — which to a lively man with flagging 
physical powers must otherwise have grown irksome 
and monotonous — was brightened on the dullest day 
by the recollection that in the course of a month or 
two his work at St. Paul's would take him back once 
more to the crowded town. Sydney Smith felt as 
much at home in Piccadilly as Dr. Johnson was in 
Fleet Street, and he sympathized with the great 
moralist's sententious verdict, that the man who is 
tired of London is tired of life. " I have no relish 
for the country," is his amusing confession to a 
lady friend, " it is a kind of healthy grave. I am 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 349 

afraid you are not exempt from the delusions of 
flowers, green turf, and birds ; they all afford slight 
gratification, but are not worth an hour of rational 
conversation; and rational conversation in sufficient 
quantities is only to be had from the congregation of 
a million of people in one spot." ^ 

Some snatches of his conversation — floating straws 
which reveal how the stream ran — are here added to 
those which have already been published, as they are 
thoroughly characteristic both of the man and of his 
method. " Ah ! you talk very lightly of common 
sense, but you forget, as I said in my lectures, that 
two thousand years ago common sense was not in- 
vented, and that philosophers would be considered as 
inspired by the gods, and would have altars raised to 
them for the advice which a grandmother now gives 
to a child six years old." " Keep doing, expect little 
from others, but cherish confidence in their good-will. 
Be thankful." " Great care must be taken that life 
does not become wearisome before it is time to 
depart." " Nothing convinces me more of the fine 
nature of man than the undoubted pleasure derived 
from benevolent actions — it seems to be the right way 
of living." " Respect for the past is not bigotry, and 
we are to beware of the danger of changing too much, 
as well as that of not changing at all." " A few 
scraps of victory are thrown to the wise and just 
in the long battle of life." " Every political emi- 
nence is a Tarpeian Rock." Such remarks, uttered 
for the most part in casual conversation, afford a 
passing glimpse of the wisdom of Sydney Smith; 

• Published Correspondence, p. 542. 



350 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

and the two or three which follow exhibit with 
equal clearness the sly and sparkling nature of 
his wit. One day the conversation turned upon an 
obstinate man who was full of prejudices. Sydney 
Smith, who knew his character and opinions, ex- 
pressed despair, — "You might," said he, "as well 
attempt to poultice the humps off a camel's back ! " 
Preferment in the Church, like fortune in the world, 
has a tendency to make men more conservative, and it 
was in allusion to this well-known social fact that he 
observed drily, " The liberaUty of churchmen gene- 
rally is like the quantity of matter in a cone — both 
get less and less as they move higher and higher." 
" Benevolence is a natural instinct of the human mind. 
When A sees B in grievous distress, his conscience 
always urges him to entreat G to help him ! " "I will do 
human nature the justice to say," were his words on 
another occasion, " that we are all prone to make other 
people do their duty." To one who expressed a very 
strong opinion, and justified it on the ground that he 
was " only a plain man," he retorted that he was 
" not aware what the gentleman's personal appearance 
had to do with the question." With equal ease he 
was able to hit off in some happy phrase the strength 
or weakness of the people around him : — " He is like 
a barometer, the more you press him the higher he 
rises." " His understanding," so runs his criticism 
of another man, " is as small and as pinched as the 
foot of a Chinese woman." He expressed his admira- 
tion of a woman whom he admired, by declaring that 
" her looks are the natural food of my soul ;" and of 
a man, " in his conversation there are the furrows 
of long thought." A distinguished American, Mr. 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 351 

Edward Everett, perliaps pronouDced the best criti- 
cism on the table-talk of Sydney Smith, when he 
declared, after listening for a while to his conversation, 
that " if he had not been known as the wittiest man 
of his day, he would have been accounted one of the 
wisest." ^ 'No more kindly humourist ever breathed 
than Sydney Smith, and the fact that though he was 
armed with so sharp a weapon, he went through life 
surrounded by the love as well as admiration of those 
who knew him best, says a great deal not only for the 
goodness of his heart, but also for his habitual self- 
restraint.^ 

About this period a clergyman from the north of 
England, who afterwards rose to eminence in the 
Church, was attracting great attention by his elo- 
quence as an occasional preacher in London. Sydney 
Smith had heard him refer in the pulpit to the 
" brilliant reptile's venomed fang," and in the follow- 
ing note to Miss Harcourt, he applies that curious 

^ " Memoir of Sydney Smith," chap. xii. p. 258. 
2 Sydney Smith is reported to have written the following witty 
lines, but the evidence of his authorship is not quite complete, and 
therefore they are given in this note with the accompanying tra- 
ditional account of their origin : — The occasion was an animated 
discussion at a friend's house on the folly of spending money 
in jewellery, whereupon a lady retorted that her husband spent 
twice as much and twice as foolishly at the club ; soon after, whist 
was introduced, and Sydney Smith wrote the following on the back 
of a card : — 

" We think not that all pleasure fades, 
Regardless of the knave of spades, 

The sexton and his subs. ; 
We thus as partners play our parts. 
Our wives on diamonds set their hearts, 
We set our hearts on — cluhs ! " 



352 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

expression in a manner which probably would have 
surprised the preacher had he heard it. 

56, Green Street, 
[lvii.] April 30th, 1841. 

Deae Georgiana, — The necessity at a rout of 
talking to five or six persons at the same time con- 
fuses an understanding not remarkable for light and 
arrangement ; but I believe our contract was that I 
am to call for you in my carriage at eleven o'clock, to 
encounter the " brilUant reptile's venomed fang," and 
this I shall do, unless I hear to the contrary. 

Yours, dear Georgiana, 
Very truly, 

Sydney" Smith. 

Miss G. Harcourt. 

" Strange commotion in the political world," wrote 
Sydney Smith to Lord Carlisle in May, " and I trace 
all the evil to the attack upon — Cathedrals." 

There are one or two significant allusions in the 
letters which he wrote in the course of this year, 
which indicate the religious and social changes of the 
times. " Everybody is turning Puseyite," he writes 
to Mrs. Crowe ; " having worn out my black gown, I 
preach in my surplice ; this is all the change I have 
made, or mean to make." ^ Railway communication 
had just been made between London and the West 
of England, and Combe-Florey and the metropolis 
seemed at one stride to have become near neighbours. 
" We are just nine hours from door to door," lie in- 
forms Lady Grey ; " I call this a very serious increase 
of comfort. I used to sleep two nights on the 
' Published Correspondence, p. 561. 



OF THE liEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 353 

road, and to travel with a pair of horses is miserable 
work." * 

Robert and Sydney Smith were through life de- 
votedly attached to one another, and it is a matter 
of regret that scarcely any memorials of their brotherly 
intercourse have been preserved. The accompanying 
letter from Bobus is therefore valuable, as affording 
a passing glimpse of the attitude in which the two 
brothers stood to each other. 

[lviii.] Cheam, September 5th, 1841. 

My dear Sydney, — I go on as most old fellows 
do, nee rede nee suaviter ! I should like to be 
with you at Combe- Florey, but I have not energy 
enough to go. The number of hours matters little t 
it is the preparation and the displacement. * * * I 
am not sorry the Whigs are out. The country was 
tired of them, I think, and always will be after a short 
time. There is too much botheration in their politics 
for our people, who, though they have reformed more 
than all the nations of Europe put together, do not 
like scheming and planning reforms when the work 
is not in hand, and called for by some pressing occa- 
sion ; they have something else to do, and talking 
about reform disturbs them. I do myself think the 
state of things best suited to our condition is a Tory 
Government, checked by a strong opposition, and 
under the awe of a tolerably Liberal public opinion. 
That is pretty near what we shall have if Peel can 
keep his army in order. But who will answer for 
that? I am glad to hear so good an account of 

^ Published Correspondence, p. 5G5. 

A a 



354 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

you all. God bless you, dear Sydney ! Love to your 
wife. 

Your affectionate brother, 

Robert Smith. 

In tlie autumn Sydney Smith was at Munden House, 
"Watford, on a visit to his daughter, Mrs. Hibbert, 
and as the cold weather returned he retired to his 
winter quarters at Combe-Florey. " I pass my life 
in reading. The moment my eyes fail I must give 
up my country preferment." ^ His habits in the 
country were always most methodical, and the house- 
hold arrangements went with the regularity of clock- 
work. He had prayers at nine, a carriage drive 
at ten, lunch at one, dinner at eight, prayers at ten, 
and went to bed at eleven. The services on Sunday 
were in the forenoon at eleven, and in the afternoon 
at three. The Sacrament was administered once a 
month. His sermons seldom exceeded twenty minutes 
in length ; they were plain, pointed, and impressive. 

A gentleman, now occupying a prominent position 
in the world, who, as a child, accompanied his 
parents on a visit to Combe-Florey, states that he 
has a vivid remembrance of Sydney Smith's kind- 
ness towards him during the delightful days which 
he spent under his roof. The speaking-trumpet, 
through which he used to give his orders to the 
ploughman at Foston, was used by him at Combe- 
Florey to call the children in to dinner, and the little 
boy from London was not likely to forget in after- 
days such a summons. He states that on Sunday at 
church " he made me weep bitterly by his sermon, 

® Published CoiTespondence, p. 571. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



365 



the only sermon at which I ever wept. The subject 
of it, or, at any rate, of the part which moved me, 
was the duty of obedience to parents." The present 
Eector of Combe- Florey, the B.ev. Edward A. Sanford, 
M.A., who immediately succeeded Sydney Smith in 
the hving, adds the additional testimony that, "he 




INTEBIOK OF COMBE-FLOREY CHUECH. 



performed the service in church in a loud, clear, and 
reverent voice. His sermons were simple, short, and 
practical. He wrote a very illegible liand,^ so much 
so that sometimes he was unable to read his own 



^ Readers of Lady Holland's book will remember Sydney Smith's 
own confession on this point : " My writing is as if a swarm of 
ants, escaping from an ink bottle, had walked over a sheet of 
paper without wiping their legs." Chap. viii. p. 135. 



356 THE LTFE AND TIMES 

writing. This caused him to employ a shoemaker, 
who was also his clerk, to copy his sermons, and 
other manuscripts. For some time after I came here 
this same man, Thomas Lovelace by name, continued 
to act as clerk, and more than once after my sermon 
he would tell me that he had copied one for Mr. 
Smith on the same text as that on which I had 
preached. The parish school in Mr. Smith's time 
was not large or well attended. Still there was one, 
kept by a dame in a cottage, and I am told that both 
Mr. and Mrs. Smith took much interest in it, and 
continually visited it." 

The same spirit which animated him at Combe- 
Florey was conspicuous also in his ministrations at St. 
Paul's. As a preacher at the Cathedral he was greatly 
liked ; and the plain, direct, and rational character of 
his sermons, and the deep religious feeling which 
always seemed to accompany their delivery, caused 
them to be heard with rapt and reverent attention. 
One who frequently heard him at St. Paul's speaks of 
the character of his sermons in almost the same words 
as those which have already been employed to describe 
his appearance in the village church of Foston : " His 
discourses were pointed and practical ; they seldom, or 
never, exceeded twenty minutes in delivery ; and usually, 
even in the crowded congregations which he drew, the 
silence was so complete that you might have heard a 
pin drop." The same lady, — the daughter of an 
intimate friend of Sydney Smith's — in speaking of the 
bold attitude which he took in reference to the High 
Church movement, which was beginning to make its 
influence felt towards the close of his life, states that 
she was in the Cathedral when he preached a sermon 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 357 

on the Vestments question, and she recalls hearing 
him exclaim, " I cannot tolerate,'' or words to that 
effect, " this bowing to the east, bowing to the west, 
and kindred absurdities ! " The Tractarian move- 
ment, or the " Newmania," as he sometimes termed it, 
after its real leader, seemed to Sydney Smith distinctly 
retrogressive in character and dangerous in tendency, 
and his masculine common sense revolted at the 
insidious attempt to bring about a revival of what 
he, as a staunch Protestant, maintained was effete and 
mawkish superstition. 

He was too honest and too courageous a man 
to conceal the hostility which he felt to a move- 
ment which casts a slur on the Reformation, and 
distracts with its vestments and vain shows the 
thoughts of men from the chief end of Religion — a 
life of practical righteousness. " I believe I shall be 
burned alive by the Puseyites," are his words to a 
friend on the Continent ; " nothing so remarkable in 
England as the progress of these foolish people. I 
have no conception what they mean, if it be not to 
revive every absurd ceremony and every antiquated 
folly which the common sense of mankind has set 
to sleep. You will find at your return a fanatical 
Church of England, but pray do not let it prevent 
your return. We can always gather together in 
Park Street and Green Street a chosen few who have 
never bowed the knee to Rimmon." '' If Sydney 
Smith had been ten years younger when the Puseyite 
movement sprang into existence, it would have had to 
reckon with the opposition of one of the ablest Church- 

' Published Correspondence, p. 577. 



358 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

men of this century — a man who had gained the ear 
of his countrymen to an extent to which few eccle- 
siastics ever gain it, and one to whom the English 
people were prepared to listen, not only because of his 
unrivalled powers of expression, but also out of the 
confidence inspired by unselfish devotion to their good. 
He was, however, as the following letter to Miss 
Martineau reveals, already an old man, harassed with 
increasing physical infirmities, and no longer equal to 
the strain of prolonged controversy, and the Puseyites 
and their RituaHstic successors have reason to con- 
gratulate themselves on that fact, although, as we 
shall presently see, they did not entirely escape the 
satire of a man who regarded their teaching with 
indignation and their practices with contempt. 

[lix.] Combe-Florey, Dec. lltla, 1842. 

Dear Miss Martineau, — I am seventy-two years 
of age, at which period there comes over one a 
shameful love of ease and repose, common to dogs, 
horses, clergymen, and even to EcUnhurgh Beviewers. 
Then an idea comes across me sometimes that I am 
entitled to five or six years of quiet before I die. I 
fought with beasts at Ephesus for twenty years. Have 
not I contributed my fair share for the establishment 
of important truths, and for the discomfiture of quacks 
and fools ? Is not the spirit gone out of me ? Can I 
now mix ridicule with reason, so as to hit at once every 
variety of opposition ? Is not there a story about Gil 
Bias and the Archbishop of Granada ? 

I am just come from London, where I have been 
doing duty at St. Paul's, and preaching against the 
Puseyites — I. Because they lessen the aversion to the 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 359 

Catholic faith, and the admiration of Protestantism, 
which I think one of the greatest improvements 
the world ever made. II. They inculcate the prepos- 
terous surrender of the understanding to bishops. 
III. They make religion an affair of trifles, of pos- 
tures, and of garments. 

Nothing is talked of in London but China. I 
wrote to Lord Fitzgerald, who is at the head of the 
Board of Control, to beg, now that the army was so 
near, that he would conquer Japan. I utterly deny 
the right of those exclusive Orientals to shut up the 
earth in the way they are doing, and I think it one of 
the most legitimate causes of war. But this argument 
we will have out when we meet. 

I believe Peel to be a philosopher disguised in a 
Tory fool's-cap, who will do everything by slow degrees 
which the Whigs proposed to do at once. Whether 
the delay be wise or mischievous is a separate question, 
but such I believB to be the man in whom the fools of 
the earth put their trust. 

I am living here, with my wife and one son, in one of 
the prettiest parsonages in England. I am at my ease in 
point of income, tolerably well for an old man, giving 
broth and physic to the poor, but no metaphysical 
dissertations on the Thirty-nine Articles. I have many 
friends, and always pronounce violent panegyrics on 
you whenever your name is mentioned. 

Sydney Smith. 

This letter led to further correspondence, and the 
remarkable allusion to Peel induced Miss Martineau 
to send her own estimate of that distinguished states- 
man. 



360 THE LIFE AND TLMES 

[lx.] Combe-Florey, 29tli Dec, 1842. 

Dear Miss Martineau, — * * * Your character of 
Peel is striking. 1 have not studied him enough to 
verify or dispute it. I doubt if you could have known 
anything of Francis Horner. I do not think you 
were invented when he flourished in the world. He 
was a very remarkable man, and as good as he was 
wise. The picture you draw of your life is very 
interesting, as it developes the resources of mental 
energy, and evinces that empire which a strong mind 
may obtain over a weak body. Birds and trees, or, as 
the newspapers would call them, " the vegetable world 
and the feathered creation," are led into sad mistakes 
by the weather. The one are beginning to make nests, 
and the other to put out buds, forgetting the bitter- 
ness of March. " You smiled upon me " (says 
Petrarch), " and I thought it was spring, and my heart 
put forth the flowers of Hope." Alas ! alas ! I 
remain, dear Miss Martineau, with sincere respect and 

regard, yours always, 

Sydney Smith. 

His old foe, the gout, attacked him at Christmas, 
and a few days later he thus moralizes in a third letter 
to Miss Martineau on the subject. 

rLxi.l Combe-Morey, Jan. 4th, 1843. 

My dear Miss Martineau, — * * * What an admir- 
able provision of Providence is the gout ! What pre- 
vents human beings from making the body a larder or 
a cellar, but the gout ? When I feel a pang, I say, ' I 
know what this is for. I know what you mean. I 
understand the hint ! ' and so I endeavour to extract 

a little wisdom from pain. 

Sydney Smith. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH, 361 

The following lines were written more than forty 
years ago, but the sixth verse is so apt a description 
of some modern representatives of the same school, 
that it reads as if it were a criticism on recent events 
in the Ecclesiastical Courts. Nevertheless, there is a 
saying that " history repeats itself." 

[r.xii.] 

WHAT IS A PUSEYITB ? 

" At a recent trial Lord Justice Knight Bruce asked if any 
of the leai'ued counsel could define a Puseyite, but none of the 
learned gentlemen attempted a definition/^ — inde Morning 
Herald. 

i. 

Pray tell me what's a Puseyite ? 'Tis puzzlinor to de- 
scribe 
This ecclesiastic genus of a pious, hybrid tribe. 
At Lambeth and the Vatican, he's equally at home, 
Altho' 'tis said, he rather gives the preference to 
Rome. 

II. 
Voracious as a book- worm is his antiquarian maw, 
The " Fathers " are his text-book, the *' Canons " are 

his law. 
He's mighty in the Eubrics, and well up in the Creeds, 
But he only quotes the *' Articles " just as they suit 
his needs. 

III. 
The Bible is to him almost a sealed Book, 
Reserve is on his lips and mystery in his look ; 
The sacramental system is the torch to illumine his 

night, 
He loves the earthly candlestick more than the 
heavenly light. 



362 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

IV. 
He's great in punctilios, where he bows and where he 

stands, 
111 the cutting of his surpUce, and the hemming of his 

bands, 
Each saint upon the Calendar he knows by heart at 

least. 
He always dates his letters on a " Vigil " or a 

"Feast." 

V. 
But hark ! With what a nasal twang, betwixt a 

whine and groan, 
He doth our noble liturgy most murderously intone ; 
Cold are his prayers and praises, his preaching colder 

still, 
Inanimate and passionless ; his very look does chill. 

VI. 

He talketh much of discipline, yet when the shoe doth 

pinch, 
This most obedient, duteous son will not give way an 

inch ; 
Pliant and obstinate by turns, whate'er may be the 

whim. 
He's only for the Bishop, when the Bishop is for him. 

VII. 

Others as weak, but more sincere, who rather feel than 

think, 
Encouraging he leads to Popery's dizzy brink, 
And when they take the fatal plunge, he walks back 

quite content 
To his snug berth at Mother Church, and wonders 

why they went. 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 363 

VIII. 

Such, and much worse, aye, worse ! had 1 time to 

write. 
Is a faint sketch, your worship, of a thorough Puseyite, 
Whom even Rome repudiates, as she laughs within her 

sleeve, 
At the sacerdotal mimic, the solemn Would-Beheve. 

IX. 

Oh, well it were for England, if her Church were rid 

of those 
Half- Protestant, half-Papist, who are less her friends 

than foes. 
Give me the open enemy, not the hollow friend ; 
With God, and with our Bible, we will the Truth 

defend. 

Sydney Smith. 




ST. PAUL'S. 



364 THE LIFE AND TIMES 



CHAPTER XIV. 

1843—1845. 

Old age — " Honour, love, obedience, troops of friends " — lUness and 
death — His place in English literature and life. 

A VIVID impression of Sydney Smith still lingers at St. 
Paul's, where he is chiefly remembered for the vigilance 
with which he watched over the affairs of the Cathedral, 
and for the promptitude, tact, and ability he displayed 
in connection with the delicate and often complex 
business of the Chapter. At the period when he 
became a canon residentiary, there was a consider- 
able degree of laxity in many of the arrangements 
connected with the church, and sometimes the ser- 
vices of the minor canons and vicars choral were 
performed in anything but a reverent and becoming 
manner. Any irregularity which happened during his 
term of residence was certain to attract his notice and 
to bring down his censure, for he had the utmost ab- 
horrence of the smallest approach to carelessness in the 
discharge of duties of so sacred a nature. 

The Chapter clerk, the architect, and other officials 
connected with the cathedral in his time have borne 
witness to his business capacity, and the minuteness 
with which he entered into the estimates and accounts 
of the Cathedral. Mr. Hodgson, the then Chapter clerk, 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 365 

used to declare that Sydney Smith was tlie first of the 
canons who for many years had taken the trouble tho- 
roughly to master the affairs of the Chapter ; he would 
investigate the accounts, correct abuses with respect 
to the appropriation of funds if such were detected, 
and by every means in his power promote the efficient 
working of every branch of the business of the Chapter. 

It became, indeed, a matter of universal observation 
that the most brilhant of the canons was likewise the 
best man of business amongst them. He allowed 
nothing to be done without obtaining estimates of the 
expense, and be usually insisted on two or three, in 
order that he might be able the better to judge of the 
reasonableness of eacli. Through his exertions, ad- 
ditional seats were provided in the choir, a better light 
for the organist was secured, and more appropriate 
fittings placed in the morning chapel. On one oc- 
casion, some necessary work had to be done in the south 
aisle, and he was informed that the cost in former years 
had always been 28/. He protested against this as an 
exorbitant sum for what was required, and taking the 
matter in hand, found that he could get it done quite 
as satisfactorily for 14/. ; and that was only one illustra- 
tion amongst many of the way in which he shielded the 
expenditure from abuse. 

He was — especially towards the close of his life when 
he was constantly in a state of more or less physical 
pain— a little intolerant of the views of others, and in- 
clined to brush aside proposals of other men in a some- 
what abrupt and dictatorial way. He would not believe, 
for instance, that the cathedral could be warmed, and 
he declared the idea to be "romantic," and added, 
" You might as well try and warm the county of 



366 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Middlesex ;'' but, nevertheless, the plan proposed 
succeeded, and he was convinced by experience. 

There is a tradition at St. Paul's about his musical 
predilections, which is not without interest. It ap- 
pears that music in the minor key always had a most 
depressing effect upon him ; he felt unnerved by it, and 
was compelled to forbid its introduction into the 
services, whenever he was in residence. 

The last two or three years of liis life were unmarked 
by special incident, and they naturally witnessed his 
gradual withdrawal into comparative privacy. The 
breakfast parties which he was accustomed during the 
closing years of his life to give at G-reen Street were 
delightful gatherings, and the "feast of reason and the 
flow of soul " which marked them, frequently rendered 
them memorable occasions in the social experiences of 
the guests. His invitations to these assemblies were 
models of terse and clear composition, and he usually 
contrived in two or three words not only to issue his 
mandates, but also to describe the nature of the party 
to which he summoned his friends : — 

[Lxm.] 56, Green Street, May lOtli, 1842. 

My dear Georgiana — Will you and Egerton break- 
fast here on Saturday morning, precisely at ten ? Real 
philosophers, no assertion admitted without reasoning 
and strict proof. 

Yours affectionately, 

Sydney Smith. 

Miss G. Harcourt. 

Fortunately for himself, his gay spirits remained 
with hira to the last, his mental vigour was unim- 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 367 

paired, and though his energy was unabated, his 
physical powers no longer responded with the 
same alacrity to the demands made upon them. 
The railroad was undoubtedly one of the consolations 
of his old age, and he declared that when he thought 
of it, and of some other modern chano-es, he was 
ashamed that he had not been discontented in his youth 
with the privations which he then endured ! In 1842, 
he chronicles the fact that the railway had reached a 
point (where it still remains) only five miles from 
Combe-Florey. " Bath in two hours, London in six — 
in short, everywhere in no time ! " he gleefully exclaims ; 
and then with a touch of his peculiar humour, he levels 
a shaft in the old direction — " What we want is an 
overturn which would kill a bishop, or at least a dean. 
This mode of conveyance would then become perfect." ' 

In two or three exceedingly witty letters to the 
Morning Ghronicle, after admitting that railway tra- 
velling is a delightful improvement of human life, and 
that by it time, distance, and delay are practically 
abolished, he points out the dangers of the new 
mode of locomotion, and protests against being 
locked in the carriages during a journey with the 
pleasing reflection that he may be " burned alive" ere 
its conclusion ; and he implores " our dear Ripon, or 
our youthful Grladstone " to come " cheerfully to the 
rescue " of imperilled and terrified humanity. 

The allusion to the " youthful Gladstone " of Sydney 

Smith's old age, suggests a reminiscence of the Canon 

of St. Paul's with which the greatest Liberal Premier 

since Lord Grey has enriched this sketch of his life 

and times. 

Published Correspondence, p. 478. 



368 THE LIFE AKD TIMES 

[lxiv.] 10, Downing Street, Whitehall, 

Oct. 16th, 1883. 

I knew Mr. Sydney Smith for a good many years, 
but 1 was not intimate with him. I remember, 
however, one incident that may be told to the credit of 
his modesty. I was invited in 1833 to meet him at 
dinner in the house of Mr. Hallam, the historian, the 
house made famous through In Memoriam. 

After dinner he spoke to me for some time very 
kindly. The conversation at one moment turned on 
the improvement which was then becoming visible 
in the character and conduct of the clergy. He dwelt 
upon the rapid advance and wide scope of this im- 
provement, and good-humouredly added in illustration 
of what he had said, ' Whenever you meet a man of 
my age, you may be sure he is a bad clergyman.' 

W. E. Gladstoisie. 

It would be unfair to deny that the High Church 
Party, whatever — from Sydney Smith's point of view 
— may be their theological errors, are entitled to no 
small share of credit for the improvement in the zeal 
and devotion of the clergy, to which he thus directed 
the attention of Mr. Gladstone. 

The number of those who met Sydney Smith in 
society forty or fifty years ago, is naturally now very 
limited, nevertheless Mr. Gladstone is happily not the 
only distinguished man in England who is able to 
recall with pleasure social hours spent in the witty 
canon's company. At a banquet in 1843, at Sir Robert 
Peel's, in honour of the King of Saxony, Sir Richard 
Owen made the acquaintance of Sydney Smith, and he 
has also kindly transcribed for these pages his recol- 
lections of the circumstances : — 



OP THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 369 

[lxv.] Eichmond Park, October 15tli, 1883. 

On the occasion of tlie visit to London in 1843 of 
the King of Saxony, attended by Professor Cams, the 
noted comparative anatomist, Sir Robert Peel, then 
Prime Minister, was honoured by his Majesty's 
acceptance of an invitation to dinner in Whitehall 
Gardens to meet a select party of representatives of ad- 
ministrative, literary, scientific, and artistic notability. 

As a literary celebrity, the Rev. Canon Sydney 
Smith received an invitation ; but his relations to 
the Premier were such, or so slender, as led him to 
decline the invitation. Sir Robert quite understood 
the state of the case, and prevailed on his friend Dr. 
Buckland to see the canon and explain the nature and 
representative character of the proposed party ; where- 
upon Sydney Smith wrote a genial note to Sir Robert, 
praying for a " Locus penitentiae," and Sir Robert 
replied in the same good-natured strain. 

I was honoured with an invitation, my friendly 
relations with Professor Cams being known to our host. 
In the drawing-room before dinner, I was struck by 
the entry of a remarkable figure and physiognomy 
whose name I did not catch, and noticed also the em- 
pressement with which Sir Robert Peel advanced to 
shake hands with this guest. On asking Dr. Buckland, 
he told me it was Sydney Smith, and related the cir- 
cumstances of the double invitation. 

At the dinner-table Professor Cams and I sat 
opposite to Sydney Smith and Dr. Buckland, and 
through their genial wit the time passed jovially. 
At the dessert, Buckland narrated to his neighbour the 
circumstance of his having shortly before received from 
a missionary clergyman in ISTew Zealand, an Oxford 

B b 



370 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

graduate, a box of bones of tlie great extinct birds of 
New Zealand, the former existence of which in that 
island had been deduced from a fragment of such a 
bone which I had received a few years before. Buck- 
land kindly brought the box at once to the College of 
Surgeons, and now expatiated to Sydney upon the 
rapturous pleasure with which I handled and inspected 
a specimen. ' Oh,' said Sydney, * no wonder the 
Professor was overjoyed ; it was his — Magnum Bonum !' 
and another hearty laugh resounded from our end of 
the table. Sir Robert and his royal guest had more 
than once turned their faces our way, and I thought 
they did so with regret at not being within ear-shot of 
the sources of our hilarity. 

Richard Owen. 

Amongst those who knew Sydney Smith intimately 
during the last decade of his life were Earl Granville 
and Lord Houghton, both of whom were his guests 
at Combe-Florey. The testimony of Earl Granville 
tends to confirm the attractive view of his character, 
which all who personally knew him appear to share : — 

[lxvi.] Walmer Castle, Deal, 

Dec. 3rd, 1883. 

I met the Rev. Sydney Smith constantly for some 
years at Lord Lansdowne's, Lord Holland's, Lord 
Carlisle's, Miss Berry's, and at his and my own house. 
In his most joyous moods it was impossible not to 
be struck with the earnestness with which he attacked 
everything he thought wrong, and defended what 
seemed to him to be right. 

His kindliness was overflowing, and entirely took 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 371 

away the sting from the repartees which were perpe- 
ually bubbUng up in his talk. * * * 

Geanville. 

Lord Houghton's estimate of the character of 
Sydney Smith has already been given to the world in 
the pages of " Monographs : Personal and Social ;" a 
volume which contains a graceful and vivid descriptive 
sketch not only of the Canon of St. Paul's, but also of 
some of the most eminent and remarkable of his con- 
temporaries. 

The interest to an admirer of Sydney Smith of 
the engraved portrait at the beginning of this book will 
perhaps be enhanced by the fact that so competent a 
judge as Lord Houghton has pronounced it to be an 
excellent likeness of his friend. The original minia- 
ture is the property of Miss Holland, and it dates from 
the closing years of his life at Foston. The picture is 
regarded by the family as a faithful portrait. 

A great deal h is been said and wri tten at various 
times about the irreve^'ence of Sydney Smith, and his 
levity on subjects which are usually supposed to lie 
beyond the province of the jester. A distinction, 
however, must of course be drawn between jokes on 
ecclesiastical topics and those which can even re- 
motely be termed profane. Some of the most bril- 
liant and caustic witticisms of Sydney Smith were 
levelled against members of his own profession, and 
his humour seemed to run riot whenever it ap- 
proached clerical affairs, especially if a bishop hovered 
in the distance. It has been truthfully said, however, 
that if he sported with the tassel of his pulpit-cushion, 
he refrained from playing with the leaves of his Bible, 



372 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

and as a rule to wliich it would be difficult to prove ex- 
ceptions, it can also be confidently asserted that his 
humour rarely trespassed beyond the harmless limits 
prescribed by ecclesiastical questions and institutions. 

Scarcely anything could well be more misleading or 
unjust than the persistent assertions, which have been 
freely made from time to time in certain quarters, con- 
cerning that licence of speech which Sydney Smith is 
supposed to have allowed himself in regard to themes 
which no right-minded man can ever handle without 
the deepest reverence. It is satisfactory therefore to 
be able to declare that if there is one point more than 
another which has been brought into prominence in 
the course of the investigations which have led to this 
book, it is the remarkable unanimity with which those 
who knew him best declare that there was little or 
nothing — even in his most unguarded hours — to 
countenance such a view of his character. 

It is admitted by those who are competent to give 
an opinion on the subject, that no person now living 
was better acquainted with Sydney Smith or stood 
higher in his regard, than his attached and valued 
friend Mrs. Malcolm, who, as Miss Georgiana Harcourt, 
had constant opportunities during a long term of years 
of arriviug at a correct impression concerning him. 
The accompanying estimate of the nature of Sydney 
Smith's wit will therefore be read with pleasure, es- 
pecially by those who are aware how singularly en- 
titled Mrs. Malcolm is to speak on such a subject : — 

[lxvii.] 67, Sloane Street, London, W. 

May 19th, 1884. 
I have been asked, as an old and intimate friend of 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 373 

dear Sydney Smith, to give my impressions of liis 
character on some points on which the world in general 
is much mistaken. It is too commonly imagined 
that he was merely a wit and hnmorist, clever in 
every way, but with little serious thought or feeling. 
This, however, was very far from the truth. His 
sense of fun was so great that he could not help some- 
times making a joke on ecclesiastical subjects, but never 
on religious topics. 

Indeed, charming as his wit and humour were, we 
used to think him still more agreeable in his serious 
moods, when his conversation was most interesting and 
instructive. All his friends will be very thankful to 
see this phase of his character brought forward. 

Georgiana Malcolm. 

It is gratifying in this connection to be able to sup- 
port such a statement with the authority of so keen 
and competent an observer as Lord Houghton, who 
assured the writer that he " never knew, except once, 
Sydney Smith to make a jest on any religious subject, 
and then he immediately withdrew his words and 
seemed ashamed that he had uttered them." His wit 
appeared to play naturally around his own profession, 
and its flow was not only spontaneous but perpetual ; 
and it is therefore a matter for congratulation that it 
so seldom led him astray or was of a nature to merit 
legitimate censure. It is at least certain that no other 
humorist can be named whose wit and satire were 
more conspicuously under the sway of a pure and 
generous heart. 

The following tribute to the memory of Sydney 
Smith will be read with interest by every Englishman 



374 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

who can appreciate the genius and self-denial, the 
simplicity and strength, which meet in the character of 
John Ruskin : — 

[lxviii.] Oxford, Nov. 15th, 1883. 

My dear Sir, — I wanted to tell you what deep re- 
spect I had for Sydney Smith, but my time has been 
cat to pieces ever since your note reached me. He 
was the first in the literary circles of London to assert 
the value of ' Modern Painters,' and he has always 
seemed to me equally keen-sighted and generous in his 
estimate of literary efforts. His ' Moral Philosophy ' 
is the only book on the subject which I care that my 
pupils should read, and there is no man (whom I have 
not personally known) whose image is so vivid in my 
constant affection. 

Ever your faithful servant, 

John Euskin. 

Stuart J. Eeid, Esq. 

The letters which Sydney Smith wrote during the 
course of 1843, whilst full of mirth and good-humour, 
reveal in their passing allusions, how much bodily pain 
he was now called upon to endure ; but if his physical 
powers were enfeebled, there was no symptom of a de- 
cline either in the interest or the ability with which he 
turned to the affairs of life. At seventy-three he was 
learning to sing some of Moore's Irish melodies, and 
at seventy-four, that vivacious little poet himself dis- 
covered the grey-haired canon manfully redeeming 
the enforced seclusion of the gout by copying out the 
conjugations and tenses of a regiment of French verbs. 

His brief notes to, absent friends moreover retained 
their old characteristics, and were distinguished by 



OF THE KEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 375 

the quality of lucidity to a degree wliicli would have 
satisfied Mr. Matthew Arnold himself. 

[lxix.] 56, Green Street, Grosvenor Square, W,, 

July 4tli, 1843. 

My deae Georgiana, — We propose to be atNuneham 
on Tuesday, the 11th, to dinner, and to stay with you 
till Friday after breakfast, which statement does not 
mean " Ask us to stay longer," but is our real ultima- 
tum honestly placed before you ; and I do so because it 
is of some consequence to know when guests go away 
as well as when they come. You will be glad to hear 
that I can walk better, and that Mrs. Sydney is at last 
really recovered. 

Ever, dear Georgiana, 

Yours affectionately, 

Sydney Smith. 

Miss G. Harcourt, 

[lxx.] Corate-Florey, Sept. 16th, 1843. 

Dear Lord Lansdowne, — I received the haunch 
of venison, but as there was no intimation on the 
package from whence it came, I could not thank my 
benefactor as I now do. It struck me at the time that 
to send venison to the clergy without saying from 
whence it came was an act of profound and high- 
principled piety. 

Ever sincerely yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

A visit which Moore paid to Combe-Florey in the 
course of the summer, and which is referred to in 
the following letter to Miss Harcourt, was a source 
of unmixed pleasure both to poet and parson : — 



376 THE LIFE Al^D TIMES 

[lxxl] Combe-Florey, September, 1843. 

My dear GtEORGIana, — I am retiring from business 
as a diner-out, but I recommend to attention as a 
rising wit, Mr. Milnes,^ whose misfortune I believe it is 
not to be known to jou. * * * Little Tommy Moore 
sent me some verses after leaving Combe-Florey, which 
I send to you even though they are laudatory of me, 
trusting in your constant goodness and kindness to 
the subject of his panegyric.^ Moore has one or two 
notes, and looks when he is singing like a superannuated 
cherub. 

You and I are both inn-keepers, and are occupied 
from one end of the week to the other in looking after 
company. I think we ought to have soldiers billeted 
upon us. My sign is the " Rector's Head," yours the 
*' Mitre." My Devonshire curate and his wife ace just 
come, and are drinking in the tap. Mrs. Sydney and 
I are tolerably well ; I have quite got rid of my gouty 
knee, but the hot weather makes me very languid. 

I suppose you will soon be at Bishopthorpe, sur- 

■ Lord Houghton. 

' In Lady Holland's " Memoir " of her father there is a genial letter 

from Moore written from Bowood at the end of August, 1843, and 

with it is the poetical tribute referred to, which concludes in the 

following strain : — 

*' Rare Sydney ! thrice honour'd the stall where he sits, 
And be his every honour he deigneth to climb at ! 
Had England a hierarchy formed all of Avits, 
Whom, but Sydney, would England proclaim as its Primate 1 
And long may he flourish, frank, merry, and brave, 
A Horace to feast with, a Pascal to read ! 
Whde he laughs all is safe ; but when Sydney grows grave, 
We shall then think the Church is in danger indeed." 
" Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith, " by his daughter, Lady 

Holland, chapter x. page 191. 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 377 

rounded by the sons of the prophets. What a charm- 
ing existence to live in the midst of holy people, to 
know that nothing profane can approach you, to be 
certain that a dissenter can no more be found in the 
Palace than a snake can exist in Ireland, or ripe fruit 
in Scotland. To have your society strong and un- 
diluted by the laity, to bid adieu to human learning, to 
feast on the Canons, and revel in the Thirty-Nine 
Articles. Happy Georgiana ! 

My curate's name is Tin Lin. I must go and do the 
honours. God bless you, dear Georgiana. Look at 
the map where those dwell who have a regard and 
affection for you, and make a strong mark in the 
neighbourhood of Taunton. 

Sydney Smith. 

Writing in October to Lady Holland, he gives his 
impressions of Mr. and Mrs. Grote, and his verdict on 
public affairs : — 

[lxxii.] Combe-Florey, Oct. 9th, 1843. 

My dear Lady Holland, — * * * j ]iave been 
making a tour to Ilfracombe and Lynton. The moral 
of my journey is, I am too old to make journeys, and 
had better stay at home. Mr. and Mrs. Grote have 
been staying here some days. She is very clever and 
very odd.* Grote is a reasonable and reasoning Radi- 
cal, with manners a little formal but very polished. 
The Lansdownes were here for a night. Dr. Holland 

* " I remember at a party being seated by Sydney Smith, when 
Mrs. Grrote entered with a rose-coloured turban on her head, at 
which he suddenly exclaimed, ' Now T know the meaning of the 
word grotesque ! ' — Kemble's " Records of Later Life," vol. ii. 
p. 65. 



378 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

has not been to Jerusalem, but to Africa, and is now 
supposed to be in Brook Street. His wife and family 
are here. Mrs. Sydney and I are tolerably well, but I 
feel weak, and want a more bracing air. 

My prediction is that Peel will be driven out by the 
concessions to be made to Ireland, and that it will fall 
to Lord John to destroy the absurd Protestant Church 
in that kingdom. It will hardly do to pay the priests ; 
the thing is beyond that now. You miiM remove the 
flockless pastors. I have heard nothing of Samuel 
Rogers. I want very much to show him Combe-Florey, 
but he holds us cheap. Moore came and wrote verses 
upon us ; he was so much pleased. I hope to see you 
soon, dear Lady Holland, and in vigorous health. 
Till then, believe me, your affectionate friend, 

Sydney Smith. 

One of his last literary efforts was a petition to 
the House of Congress at Washington, to " institute 
some measures for the restoration of American 
credit, and for the repayment of debts incurred and 
repudiated by several of the States." The petition, 
which was caustic and vigorous, was followed by one 
or two letters to the Morning Chronicle, explaining the 
matter to the EngUsh pubhc. His own loss was insig- 
nificant, but he was incensed by the cool audacity with 
which the State of Pennsylvania — at that time the rich- 
est in the Union — repudiated the interest on its bonds, 
and he felt it a public duty to expose an act of bad 
faith, which he declared to be — taking all the cir- 
cumstances into consideration — without parallel, and 
without excuse. Some of the American newspapers 
hurled abuse upon him for the open charge of dis- 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 379 

honesty which he fearlessly made and maintained ; but 
the sympathy of the best people in the States was with 
him in his endeavour to restore the nation, in one 
direction at least, to moral health. 

In a letter from Pennsylvania, when the excitement 
was at its height, Fanny Kemble says : " You ask me 
what is said to Sydney Smith's petition ? Why the 
honest men of the country say, ' 'Tis true, 'tis pity; 
pity 'tis, 'tis true.' It is thought that Pennsylvania 
will ultimately pay and not repudiate, but it will be 
some time first." ^ Letters from America, many full of 
gratitude, and some full of abuse, reached him by 
almost every post ; and people in this country, smart- 
ing under the burden of the income-tax, or some other 
grievance of a real or imaginary nature, kept appealing 
to him to champion their cause. Sometimes moreover 
peace-offerings from American admirers arrived, as 
well as letters : — 

[lxxiii.] 56, Green Street, Grosvenor Square, 

December 7th, 1843. 
Sir, — I am much obliged for your present of 
apples, which 1 consider as apples of concord, not 
discord. I have no longer any pecuniary interest that 
your countrymen should pay these debts, but as a 
sincere friend to America, I earnestly hope they may 
do so. 

I am, sir, yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

Mr. Morgan. 

Sydney Smith was what he here describes himself 
— a sincere friend of America, too sincere a friend, 

^ " Eecords of Later Life," vol. iii. p. 19. 



380 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

indeed, to indulge in flattery. He recognized more 
clearly than most of his contemporaries, the vast and 
ever-increasing resources of the great Republic of the 
West, and his criticisms were meant to quicken and 
conserve a fine sense of honour amongst those in 
whose veins ran English blood. It was because he 
was jealous for the reputation of the American name 
that he pounced like a hawk on the public repudiation 
of debt, and every honest man in the United States 
has reason to be grateful to him for the part which he 
took at a grave crisis in the national history. Several 
distinguished Americans were personal friends of the 
canon's, and the Amerigan people to-day are amongst 
his greatest admirers. 

There was one matter connected with the Ameri- 
cans, however, which he resented deeply, and which 
he never forgave, even when his grievance against 
the Pennsylvanians was both forgiven and forgotten, 
and that was the habit of expectoration. Concern- 
ing this very disagreeable subject, it may perhaps 
be enough to quote his own words : " All claims to 
civilization are suspended in America till this secretion 
is otherwise disposed of. No English gentleman has 
spat upon the floor — since the Heptarchy." 

One of the most intimate of Sydney Smith's clerical 
friends was his colleague at the cathedral, the Rev. 
R. H. Barham, known wherever English literature is 
appreciated as the author of the inimitable Ingoldshy 
Legends. Mr. Barham (who was a Minor Canon of 
St. Paul's and Rector of St. Augustine and St. Faith's, 
London) was a genial, unassuming, and delightful com- 
panion, and was respected and admired by all who 
knew him. He died in June, 1845, — four months after 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 381 

Sydney Smith, and his " Life " — which was written a 
number of years ago by his son, the Rev. R. H. D. 
Barham — contains several amusing i-eminiscences of 
his distinguished friend, who was a frequent visitor at 
his house. 

Barham relates a very droll story which he 
heard Sydney Smith tell at tlie house of Charles 
Dickens in December, 1843, when the company in- 
cluded, amongst others, Rogers, Talfourd, Albany 
Fonblanque, Maclise, and Forster. A well-known 
publisher called one day, it appears, on the Canon, and 
after a respectful and sympathetic allusion to his recent 
losses in American Bonds, threw out the hint that he 
might make good the ravages in his fortune by writing 
a novel to appear in the orthodox three volumes, for 
which the gentleman tc whom he was indebted for the 
hint would be glad to make a liberal offer on the spot. 
" Well, sir," said Mr. Smith, after some seeming con- 
sideration, " if I do so, I can't travel out of my own 
line — ne sutor ultra crepidann, you know ; I must 
have an archdeacon for my hero, to fall in love with 
the pew-opener, with the clerk for a confidant, tyran- 
nical interference of the churchwardens, clandestine 
correspondence concealed under the hassocks, appeal 
to the parishioners, &c., &c." " With that, sir, I would 
not presume to interfere ; I would leave it all en- 
tirely to your inventive genius." " Well, sir," replied 
the Canon with urbanity, " I am not prepared to come 
to terms at present ; but if ever I do undertake such 
a work, you shall certainly have the refusal." ^ 

His high spirits, as he moved to and fro amongst 

® "Life of E. H. Barham," by his son, vol. ii. pp. 167-8. 



382 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

his friends in town, never seemed to desert him, and 
the most ordinary topic of conversation was enough to 
call his wit into play. At the Athenaeum one day, 
talking with the Bishop of London, the conversation 
glided towards two members of the club, one of whom 
was preternaturally taciturn and the other not less 
loquacious. "I never shall feel satisfied," said Sydney 
Smith, " till a marriage is brought about between a 

son of L and a daughter of D . The progeny 

would be quite perfect. I would not undertake the 

marriage though, for D never could keep silence 

so long, and would infalliably interrupt the ceremony." 

"Many thanks," he writes at the beginning of 1844 
to Charles Dickens, " for the ' Christmas Carol,' which 
I shall immediately proceed upon m preference to six 
American pamphlets I found upon my arrival, all pro- 
mising immediate payment ! " ^ 

In a letter to his daughter he states that, whilst he 
looks as strong as a cart-horse, he is so deficient in 
nervous energy that he is unable to get round the 
garden without resting once or twice. In the spring 
he was in residence at St. Paul's for the last time, 
and living, as he himself describes it, " among the best 
society in the metropolis, at ease in my circumstances ; 
in tolerable health, a mild Whig, a tolerating Church- 
man, and much given to talking, laughing, andnoise."^ 

To an invitation from Mr. Greville, he despatched 
the following amusing reply : — 

[lxxiv.] Green Street, Maj 13th, 1844. 

My dear Sir, — On the 23rd (if you will allow me to 
bring thirteen people to dinner) I shall be most happy 

' Publislied Correspondence, p. 614. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 383- 

to dine with you, but as I can hardly calculate on such 
expanded hospitality, I must, I fear, decline your kind 
invitation, and try to entertain my thirteen in Green 
Street. 

I remain, my dear sir, 

Very truly yours, 

Sydney Smith. 

Old acquaintances who met him in what proved to 
be the last summer of his life were filled with un- 
spoken apprehensions as they witnessed the rapid 
failure of his bodily health, and it was only too obvious 
even to a casual observer, in spite of the buoyant 
attitude of the man, that his bright and useful career 
was approacliing its close. 

In July, on the last Sunday of his term of resi- 
dence, he uttered his final words from the pulpit of 
St. Paul's, and he seems even then to have realized 
himself that the end was not distant. His text was 
Exodus XX. 8 : — " Remember the Sabbath day, to keep 
it holy," and the sermon that followed was a solemn 
and vigorous plea for the righteous observance of 
the Fourth Commandment. He lays stress on the 
fact that the spiritual life can only prosper when 
due attention is given to the means of grace, and that 
self-examination is the peculiar duty which the Sabbath 
brings round to every Christian man. " Can a man be 
religious," he asks, " who assigns no time for think- 
ing of religion ? Can the most perfect state of the 
human heart be obtained by absolute neglect and in- 
attention ? Is godliness the only great good upon this 
earth which can be had for nothing, and does the piety 
which fits a man for heaven grow up spontaneously in 



384 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

the mind of him who neither asks it of God, nor strives 
to gain it by the exertion of his reason, and the subju- 
gation of his passions ? The man who has no rules, no 
place, no day for that which requires the strictest rules 
for its guidance, the noblest places for its exercise, and 
the most solemn day for its recurrence ? 

It is in the absence of our usual occupations and at 
the season of leisure, that conscience regains her em- 
pire over us, and that man is compelled to hear the re- 
proaches of his own heart ; the mind turned inwardly 
on itself beholds the melancholy ravages of passion, 
the treacherous power of pleasure, and the sad waste 
of life. Every recurring Sabbath properly spent is a 
fresh, chance of salvation. 

I must suspect tbe virtue and religion of that man 
who imagines he can attain the quality or the excellence 
without submitting to the rules and practices by which 
the excellence and the quality are to be attained ; who 
believes he can be a good Christian without Sabbaths 
and without prayer, and reach the end without sub- 
mitting; to the means." 

Contrary to his usual custom, the sermon did not 
end without a personal reference, and the simple 
words of farewell which were then spoken must 
afterwards have flashed with strange pathos upon 
the memory of some who perhaps heard them un- 
moved that day : — " I never take leave of any one, 
for any length of time, without a deep impression 
upon my mind of the uncertainty of human life, and 
the probability that we may meet no more in this 
world." When Sydney Smith quitted the pulpit of 
St. Paul's that day, he had made his last appeal to the 
great congregation which assembled within its walls. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 385 

At the end of July he was back at Combe-Florey, 
and one who visited him about this time found him 
completely at home with the villagers, and most at- 
tentive to their needs— old age, it was obvious, made 
no difference in his devotion to the sick and the poor. 
" After breakfast his laboratory was fall of poor people 
where they not only had their griefs listened to, but 
where they also received at the hand of the rector 
medicines calculated to meet their manifold sicknesses." 
His generosity led him to bring down to Somerset a poor 
family living in London ; they needed a change of air, 
which they were not able to obtain, so he took them 
home, and kept them for three weeks, and they went 
back to town " extremely corpulent, and with no other 
wish than to be transported after this life to the para- 
dise of Combe-Florey." ^ In a letter to Miss Harcourt 
he gives a somewhat startling account of his own 
character and appearance, and manages in a passing 
allusion to extract a graceful compliment to that lady 
out of the incident of the visit of his musical friends : — 

[lxxv.] Combe-FJorey, July, 1844. 

My dear Georgiana, — Nothing can exceed the 
beauty of the country ; I am forced to admit that. 
Mrs. Sydney also revives. I see the Westmorelands 
are come io England. Lady Westmoreland produced a 
great impression upon me. Pray recall me to her recol- 
lection, mentioning my leading attributes of mind and 
body. Slender, grave, silent, and modest, but don't 
overdo me in this last quality. I thought her a very 
interesting woman. 

I have treated that poor musical family, the K s, 

* Published Correspondence, p. 616. 





386 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

with three weeks of fresh air, as they were all sick and 
fading away. They came here on Monday, so that you 
will find me when we meet, much improved in my 
singing — not in singing your praises, for in that 
exercise I have long been perfect. 

Believe me always, 

Your affectionate friend, 

Sydney Smith. 

Miss G. Harcourt. 

During the sultry weather in August, he spent a 
few weeks at Sidmouth, and in a letter to Lady Grey, 
he states that he has nothing to do but to look out of 
a window. " The events which have turned up are 
a dog and a monkey for a show, and a morning con- 
cert. I say to every one who sits near me on the 
marine benches, that it is a fine day, and that the pros- 
pect is beautiful ; but we get no further — I can get no 
water out of a dry rock." ^ In the same letter he states 
that he has just received intelligence that " a Sydney 
Smith " had arrived in New York, and that society 
there had been divided between two proposals, one 
of which was to give him a public dinner, and the 
other to tar and feather him ! The question, however, 
was set at rest by the surprised traveller's declaration 
that he was a journeyman cooper. 

September found him at Combe-Florey, in a state 
of extreme lassitude; without strength, indeed, as he 
ruefully declared, even to " stick a dissenter," and 
early in October alarming symptoms appeared. Dr. 
Holland was immediately summoned, and as the patient 
revived somewhat under his care, it was determined 
' Published Correspondence, p. 619. 



OP THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 387 

that he should proceed at once to his house in Green 
Street, in order that he might have the advantage of 
his son-in-law's medical skill. The journey to town 
was accomplished with tolerable ease, and once there, 
surrounded by the love of his family and the sympathy 
of a wide and attentive circle of friends, his strength 
again revived for a few wrecks, and he was able almost 
to the close of the year to take carriage exercise, and 
to enjoy in his own home the intercourse of many old 
and attached friends. 

It was in this brief " Indian summer " of his life 
that he penned the accompanying letter, — almost the 
last he ever wrote, — to his friend Mies Harcourt. It 
was written, two or three weeks after the note to 
Lady Grey with which his published correspondence 
ends, and it reveals the same kindly thought for 
others which ran like a golden thread through all 
his intercourse with those around him. 

[lxxvi.] 5G, Green Street, Grosvenor Square, 

November 27th, 1844. 

My dear GEORrfiANA, — I received great pleasure 
from your agreeable letter. It was full of pleasant 
details pleasantly told, and convinced me (of which 
I was thoroughly convinced before) that I was not 
forgotten. Such a collection of conspicuous men are 
seldom assembled under one roof. The one amongst 
them I can the least digest is S , who is any- 
thing but a polished corner of the Temple ; he seems 
to me to have hardly courtesy enough for the com- 
mon purposes of life, but this opinion may possibly 
proceed from my knowing him so little. 

I had a severe attack at the beginning of October 



388 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

of o-iddiness, which, with faintness and breathlessness, 
remained upon me for many days, and left me, as I 
have since remained, in a state of great weakness. I 
believe I am getting better. 

Many thanks to the Archbishop for his kind mes- 
sage. I had not heard of anv fall he had met with till 
you mentioned his recovery. May I always hear of 
his misfortunes (if any are to happen to him) in the 
same way. Poor Lord Grey is pining away in great 
pain. * * * I grieved sadly for poor Lsetitia Mildmay. 
I suppose her anxiety for her brother was the real 
cause of her death. 

Give, if you please, dear Georgiana, ray kindest re- 
gards to each member of the familv, and a double 
portion to the Archbishop, and believe me always, 

Your sincere friend, 

Sydney Smith. 

Lady Holland has given a touching picture of her 
father's last days, and of his gentle and loving 
thought for those around him, and of the cheery 
patience with which he endured his increasing in- 
firmities. He was greatly touched by the incessant in- 
quiries which friends and strangers alike made at the 
door concerning his health, and he remarked that it 
gave him pleasure to be the object of such attentions, 
because "it shows that I have not misused the powers 
intrusted to mo." ^ The words are significant, and 
are in keeping with the fact that through life he was 
impressed with the responsibility which his gifts im- 
posed upon him, and eager to direct even his wit to 
the common advantage. 

' "Memoir of Sydney Smith/' chap, xii., p. 259. 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 



389 



Many a visitor who at other times had left that well- 
known house in Green Street in merry mood and with 
heightened respect for its master, now went slowly 
lip to its hospitable door with an anxious and heavy 
heart. During his illness those about him saw 
how completely he acted on his own maxim, " Take 




Last London Home — 5fi, Gkeen Stheet, Grosvenor Square. 

short views, hope for the best, and put your trust in 
God." His thouo;htfulness for others revealed itself 
in a variety of beautiful ways, and it was manifest 
that he anticipated the end with the humble confidence 
of a thorouofh Christian. Years before he had declared 
that he was persuaded that the real pang of death 



390 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

was the remembrance of an ill-spent life, and now he 
had not that to trouble him. 

One of the last acts of his life was to present the 
living of Edmonton, a piece of patronage which fell 
to him as Canon of St. Paul's, to the son of the former 
vicar, and the stay of his old and sorrowing mother. 
The family had no claim whatever upon him, beyond 
the common ones of worth and need, and that act of 
patronage, so delicately bestowed, was in keeping with 
the generous spirit of his life, and disposes effectually 
of the charges of interested motive which were some- 
times made against him when he opposed the 
Ecclesiastical Commission. 

Lord Grey, who was seven years his senior, was 
lying ill at Howick when his old friend was dying in 
Green Street, and tender messages were continually 
passing between the two sick-rooms in Northumber- 
land and London. His brother Bobus, who only 
survived Sydney Smith a couple of weeks, crept to his 
bedside, and did all that brotherly love could do 
to cheer the sufferer. 

As death approached, the thought of his long 
lost and much loved son Douglas, appeared frequently 
to be present to his mind, and sometimes in the 
gathering gloom he even called him to his side. The 
end came quietly, and it found him in the firm pos- 
session of that Faith, Hope, and Charity, of which 
he had so often preached to others. On Saturday 
evening, February 22nd, 1845, life's work honourably 
accomplished, he entered into rest, in his seventy-fifth 
year. He was buried at Ken sal Green Cemetery, on 
Friday the 28th ; the funeral was strictly private, and 
only a few of his nearest relatives and friends were 



OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. 391 

present ; but in spirit at least, there was no section of 
tlie nation which was not represented by the sorrow 
ronnd that grave. 

There is an official handbook to the vast and 
silent city of the dead in which he sleeps, and 
yet so late as the summer of 1883, the name of 
one of the truest benefactors of the English people 
who rests within its gates, was not judged of suffi- 
cient importance to be included in the pages of that 
manual. Those who wish to make a pilgrimage to the 
grave of Sydney Smith, will therefore be glad to know 
that they can easily find it, by following the north 
walk until they are opposite the entrance to the 
catacombs. Turning to the left at that point, they will 
discover in the fifth row from the walk a raised tomb 
of Portland stone, which bears on a weather-beaten 
marble slab the following half-obliterated inscription : — 

TO PERPETUATE, 

"WHILE LANGUAGE AND MARBLE STILL REMAIN, 

THE NAME AND CHARACTER OF 

THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH, 

ONE OF THE EEST OF MEN. 
HIS TALENTS, THOUGH ADMITTED BY HIS CONTEMPORARIES 
TO BE GREAT, 
WERE SURPASSED BY HIS UNOSTENTATIOUS BENEVOLENCE, 
HIS FEARLESS LOVE OF TRUTH, AND HIS ENDEAVOUR TO PRO- 
MOTE THE HAPPINESS OF MANKIND 

BY Religious Toleration and Rational Freedom. 

He WAS born the 3rd of June, 1771. 

He became Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's 

Cathedral, 1831. 

He died February 22nd, 1845. 



392 THE LIFE AND TIMES 

Witli the solitary exception of a small painted 
window (erected through the efforts of his successor, 
Mr. Sanf ord) in the church at Combe-Florey, the 
grave in Kensal Green is the only memorial to 
Sydney Smith which England has to show. At 
Foston, where he spent the best years of his life, there 
is not so much as a line upon the walls to com- 
memorate his presence, and the church, which will ever 
be associated with the magic of his name, is rapidly 
falling into decay. Even in St. Paul's to this 
hour, the astonished visitor inquires in vain for the 
monument of Sydney Smith, and there is no trace 
whatever in the great metropolitan cathedral of its 
world-renowned canon. 

He himself, it is evident, anticipated no such neglect. 
In a letter in his published correspondence, written 
in the last decade of his life to a friend who held a 
prominent government appointment in the far East, 
he intimates that he hopes tbat he shall live to see him 
again, but that he is going slowly down the hill of 
life, and that if he delays his return to England 
much longer, he will find him " at St. Paul's, against 
the wall." 

It is reported that Dean Milman on his death-bed 
urged that a memorial to Sydney Smith should be 
placed in the cathedral, but nearly forty years have 
rolled away since that quiet funeral at Kensal Green, 
and the matter is still in abeyance. Strangers from 
distant shores occasionally still wander from aisle to 
aisle of that vast and stately church searching for 
some memorial of Sydney Smith, only at last to 
learn with chagrin that, amid all the monuments which 
there silently appeal to the living on behalf of the dead, 



OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 393 

no place has yet been found " at St. Paul's, against the 
wall," for even so much as a line on marble or brass to 
the memory of a man whom Macaulay admired as a 
great reasoner, and whom he termed the greatest 
master of ridicule who has appeared in England since 
Swift. 

Sydney Smith will, however, remain in English 
Literature — though widely different to both men — as 
welcome and as irrepressible a figure as Samuel John- 
son or Thomas Carlyle, and his words — no less than 
theirs — by virtue of their commanding common sense, 
will still leap to men's lips to replenish and euliven 
the dull controversies of the passing hour. Even 
though he thus requires no monument to perpetuate 
his fame, the reputation of the English nation for 
gratitude will be permanently diminished, if the cen- 
tury is allowed to slip on without some appropriate 
recoofnition within the walls of St. Paul's of one 
who was not only a man of genius, but a courageous 
friend of the people, who was always ready, in spite of 
obloquy and reproach, to employ his dreaded and 
dazzling gifts in the interests of the neglected, the 
desolate, and the oppressed. 

It was not given to Sydney Smith to sound the 
depths or soar into the heights of religious experience, 
and he had but little sympathy with the fervour and 
enthusiasm which marked the evangelical revival of 
the Eighteenth century, or the missionary zeal which 
glowed in the Nonconformist Churches with so much 
warmth at the beginning of the Nineteenth. His 
sweeping charges against the Methodists at home, and 
the Missionaries abroad, are indeed as unsatisfactory, 
and more unjust than anything else he ever wrote, 



394 LIFE AND TIMES OF THE EEV. SYDNEY SMITH. 

and Robert Hall was right in maintaining that such 
attacks " stabbed Religion itself through the sides of 
Fanaticism." But in the main, with a courage and 
consistency which are beyond challenge, he devoted 
his genius to the public good, and used the trenchant 
weapons with which nature had endowed him in the 
cause of liberty, progress, and reform. 

Nevertheless he was not a perfect man, and would 
have scorned to pose as such ; indeed Lord Murray, 
who knew him intimately through a long term of 
years, and saw him under a great variety of circum- 
stances, declared that he was more severe towards him- 
self than he was towards any other person. He loathed 
all pretence ; and, through his passionate desire not 
to seem better than he was, he frequently failed to do 
himself justice. 

The world has long recognized the wit of Sydney 
Smith, and has travelled more slowly to the recogni- 
tion of his wisdom, but those who knew him best and 
tested his heart in life's common experiences of joy 
and sorrow, place foremost to-day in their tender 
reminiscences of the man — his worth. 




THK GRAVE OJ? SYDNEY SMITH. 



INDEX. 



ADDISON, Joseph, note 29, 118. 

Advice, A little moral, 112. 

Advice concerning low spirits, 222. 

Aitkin, Miss, 232. 

Alderley Church, Cheshire, Sermon 
at, 196. 

Alison, Rev. Archibald, 46, 95. 

Allen, Dr. John, physician and li- 
brarian at Holland House, 121 ; 
early life, 122 ; literary pui suits 
of, 123 ; social influence with the 
Whigs, 124; Lord Byron's opi- 
nion of, 124 ; elected Warden and 
afterwards Master of Dulwich 
College, 125 ; his room at Hol- 
land House, 125 ; the violence of 
his language towards all op- 
pressors, 125 ; the goodness of 
his heart, 125 ; report to, about 
Foston, 172 ; arguments with, 
277. 

America, Repudiation of State 
Bonds by, 378 ; Sydney Smith a 
sincere friend of, 379. 

Amesbury, Town of, 22. 

Ampthill, Living of, 203. 

Aristotle, The philosophy of, 135, 
136. 

Ashburton, Lady, note 164. 

Athenaeum Club, Membership of, 
348, 382. 

Austin, Mrs., Letter to, 343. 

BACON, Lord, Sydney Smith's 
view of his philosophy, 136. 

Ball, Mr. Edward A. : reminiscences 
of Sydney Smith at Taunton, 
321, note 323. 

Ballot, Pamphlet on the, 337-340. 

Banks, Sir Joseph, Royal Insti- 
tution founded at house of, 133. 



Barham, The Rev. R. H., friendship 
with, 380. 

; , The Rev. R. H. D., 381. 

Baring, Sir Francis, 13. 

Bennett, Lady Mary, 196. 

Bentham, Jeremy, 120. 

Berkeley Chapel, May fair. Morning 
preacher at, 132 ; popularity in 
pulpit of, 132 ; residence near, 
319. 

Bernard, Sir Thomas, assists 
Sydney Smith to obtain preacher- 
ship at the Foundling Hospital, 
129 ; friendship with, 130 ; phi- 
lanthroi^ic devotion to the London 
poor of, 130, 131 ; Sydney Smith 
invited through his influence to 
lecture at the Royal Institution, 
133. 

Berrys, The Miss, 341, 370. 

Beverley, Meeting of clergy at, 244. 

Bishopthorpe, 164, 181, 376. 

Bishopric, Sydney Smith and a, 
294. 

Blake, Admiral, 300. 

Boileau, 84. 

Bonds, American, Repudiation of, 
378, 380. 

Boswell, James, 344. 

Bowood, 13, 163, 273. 

Bristol, Sydney Smith presented 
to a stall at, 262 ; preacher in 
the cathedral, 265 ; excitement 
occasioned by his sermon to the 
Mayor and Corporation of, on 
the " Rules of Christian Charity," 
267. 

Brougham, Henry, Lord, Com- 
mencement of Sydney Smith's 
acquaintance with, 41, 45 ; one 
of the first group of Edinhurgli 
Reviewers, 55, 56 ; statement by, 



396 



INDEX. 



concerning tlie origin of the Be- 
vieiv, 57, 58; his contributions to 
the first four numbers, 61 ; his 
rapidity as a writer, 73 ; a pro- 
voking contributor, 73 ; Mac- 
lise's pen-and-ink sketch of, 
73 ; energy and versatility of, 74 ; 
the lights and shadows of his 
character, 74, 75; a member of 
, the Friday Club, 95; an au- 
dacious criticism by, 98 ; a v .si- 
tor at Holland House, 125 ; a 
grumble by Jeffrey at, 151 1 a 
guest atHeslington, 159 ; a visi- 
tor at Foston, 192 ; an advocate 
of Catholic Emancipation, 254, 
264; and of Parliamentary Re- 
form, 287. 

Thrown, Dr. Thomas, 57, 95. 

Buck land. Dr., 369. 

BuUer, Charles, M.P., Death of, 71. 

" Bunch," 190, 191. 

Buonaparte (Napoleon), 86, 138. 

Burke, Edmund, M.P., 6, 29, 118, 
314. 

Byroo, Lord, 119, 124, 314. 

CAITHNESS, Countess of, 238. 

Campbell, Lord, 71. 

, Thomas, 41. 

Camperdowu. Countess of, Remini- 
scences of, 237. 

Canning, Right Hon. George,M.P. : 
Etonschool-days, 10 ; friendship 
with Bobus Smith, 10 ; writer in 
the Microcosm, 11 ; remark of, on 
Bobus's choice of language, 14 ; 
attitude towards Catholic claims, 
240, 257 ; death of, 258. 

Canova, 120. 

Canterbury, Archbishop of, 265. 

Carew, Lady, 238. 

Carlisle, (fifth) Earl of, neighbour 
and friend to Sydney Smith at 
Foston, 173 ; gives the new rec- 
tor free access to the library at 
Castle Howard, 174; a remark 
to, by Sydney Smith on Castle 
Howard, 174; congratulation 
from, on an unexpected accession 
of fortune, 221. 

, (sixth) Earl of, school-fel- 
low at Eton with Bobus Smith, 



10; friendship with Sydney 
Smith of, 173, 174, 352, 370. 

Carlisle, (seventh) Earl of : Sydney 
Smith's opinion of him as a boy, 
211 ; his character and career, 
211 212. 

Carlyie, Thomas. 66, 76, 341, 393. 

Castle Howard, 163, 173, 174, 221. 

Castlereagh, Viscount, 142. 

Cemeteiy, Kensal Green, 268, 890 ; 
inscription on the grave of Syd- 
ney Smith at, 391. 

Chambers, Dr. Robert, 56, 58. 

Ghro7iicle, Morning, Letters to, 367, 
378 

Clarence, H.R.H. the Duke of, 120. 

Clergy Residence Bill, 150. 

Cliffords, The noble family of, 246. 

Club, Atheuajum, 348, 382. 

, The Friday, 95, 96. 

Cockburn, Henry, Lord, 95, 227. 

Coffee, Abstinence from, 115. 

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 62, 68. 

Combe-Florey, Exchanges Foston 
for the living of, 269 ; removal to 
269-271 ; the rectory of, 272 ; the 
parish clerk of, 273 ; visit of 
Jeffrey to, 275 ; Sydney Smith 
in his study at, 277 ; kindliness 
to the poor of, 278 ; the '' foreign 
deer " in the rectory grounds of, 
279; anxiety to encourage habits 
of thrift amongst the villagers, 
279, 280; visit of Lord John 
Russell to, 304 ; atteution to his 
parishioners at, 305 ; his journeys 
to and fro between London and, 
317, 319 ; neighbourly intercourse 
at, 320, 321 ; reminiscences of 
his visits to Taunton, 321-323 ; 
a candid criticism by the parish 
clerk of, 3;'4 ; Mrs. Grote at 
Combe-Florey, 345; the "poor 
man's loaf " at. 347 ; in church at, 
354 ; a child's remembrauce of the 
rector's sermon, 3-54 ; the parish 
school of, 356 ; life-long devotion 
to the sick and poor evinced at, 
385 ; last days at, 386 ; memorial 
window in church of, 392. 

Commandment, The Fourth, 383. 

Commission, Ecclesiastical, 103 ; 
Letters to Archdeacon Singleton 
on the, 326-332. 



INDEX. 



397 



Constable, Arcliibald, 60, 61, 213. 
Conversation, Some snatches of 

Sydney Smith's, 349. 
Corner, Exclamation, 174. 
Corse, Gloucestershire, Proposal of 

Sydney Smith to exchange Fos- 

ton for living of, 268. 
Croker, J. W., 317. 
Crowe, Mrs., 352 



DAVENPOETS, The, of Capes- 
thorne, 195, 237. 

Davenport, Dennis, Esq., M.P., 
Letter to, 245. 

, Edward, Esq., Letters 

to, 202, 225. 

■ , W. Bromley, Esq., 

M.P. See Preface. 

Davy, Sir Humphrey, 119, 133. 

Lady, Letters to, 308, 325. 

Devon, North, Scenery of, 304. 

Derwentwater, 39. 

Dickens, Charles, 108, 109, 341, 

■ 382. 

Dundas, The party of, in Scotland, 
70. 

Durham, (first) Earl of, a visitor at 
Holland House, 119 ; proposal to 
visit Foston, 223 ; friendship 
with Sydney Smith, 228; an 
uncompromising champion of 
Eef orm, 284 ; an advocate in the 
Grey Cabinet of the ballot, 337. 

, Letters to, 204, 

224, 228, 340. 

Duty, Sydney Smith's deep sense 
of, 155, 30.5, 388. 



EDINBURGH, Arrival of Sydney 
Smith at, 39, note. 39 ; acquain- 
tances at, 40 ; chief citizens of, 
41 ; social life of, 41 ; lodgings 
at, 43 ; house to which he brought 
his bride, 44 ; Episcopalians of, 
46, 100 ; description of Charlotte 
Chapel at, 46. 

Review. See Se- 

vieiv, Edinbnrgh. 

Edmonton, Living of, 390. 

Eighteenth century, Evangelical 
revival of, 393. 



Eldon, Lord, 241, 261. 

Electors, Letter to, on the Catholic 
question, 254. 

Epitaph on Sydney Smith at Ken- 
sal Green Cemetery, 391. 

Erskiue, Lord Chancellor, appoints 
Sydney Smith to the living of 
Eoston, 144. 

, Letter from, 144. 

, Henry, 41, 227. 

Everett, Mr. Edward, on the table- 
talk of Sydney Smith, 351. 

'• Excursion," The, Wordsworth's, 
69. 



FALSTAFF, 257. 

Ferguson, Adam, 41. 

Ferrier, Miss : her saying about 
visits to country-houses, 195. 

Fielding, Henry, Remark upon 
Aristotle by, 136 ; at Taunton, 
300. 

Fitzroy Chapel, Sydney Smith, 
morning preacher at, 132 ; note, 
now St. Saviour's Church, St. 
Pancras, 132. 

Fitzwilliam, Earl, 219. 

Flaxton, Village of, 175. 

Foston, Sydney Smith presented 
to the Chancery living of, by 
Lord Erskine, 144; letter from 
Lord Erskine on the subject, 
144 ; nature of the new appoint- 
ment, 145 ; condition of the par- 
sonage-house at, 151 ; a rash 
valuation of, by the village car- 
penter, 161 ; an unexpected pro- 
blem — resign or build ? 1 51 ; 
Lady Holland's account of her 
father's first interview with the 
parish clerk of, 152 ; the new 
rector's report to Jeffrey of the 
place, 153; his reluctance to leave 
London, 155; Mrs. Sydney 
Smith's first impressions of York, 
156; the children's hour at, 163; 
restlessness of his early years in 
Yorkshire, 167 ; resolves to build, 
168 ; Mrs. Sydney Smith's ac- 
count of the building of Foston 
Rectory, 168-170; the arrival at 
the new rectory, 171 ; life at, 
172 ; neighbourhood of, to Castle 



398 



INDEX. 



Howard, 173; kindness of Lord 
Carlisle to the new rector of, 
173; Sydney Smith's directions 
for reaching, by road, 174; de- 
scription of a journey to, by rail, 
176; antiquity of Foston Church, 
176 ; a reminiscence of the ser- 
vices at, sixty years ago, 176 ; 
condition of the edifice, 176; 
pulpit in, 177 ; desolate aspect 
of the church and burying- 
ground, 178; the " Screeching 
Gate " at the rectory, 179 ; posi- 
tion and appearance of the rec- 
tory, 179, 180 ; Mr. E. V.Har- 
coart's recollections of visits to, 
181,182; Sydney Smith's practi- 
cal benevolence to the villagers of, 
182, 183, 181' ; liis farming opera- 
tions at, 184; a strict master, 
185 ; fondness for children, and 
employment of, at, 185, 186 ; oc- 
casional severity towards, 186 ; 
an anecdote concerning the 
"Immortal," 188; his manner of 
life at Foston, 189 ; Bible-class 
at, 189 ; his consideration for his 
servants, 190; the household 
at, 190 ; " Bunch " and her suc- 
cessor, 191; Lord Brougham's 
reminiscences of a visit to, 192 ; 
the village carpenter — Jack Ro- 
binson, 192 ; a specimen of his 
handicraft, 193 ; Kilvingt(m, the 
coachman, 193, note 194; the 
first break in the family circle at, 
194; Sydney Smith's visits from, 
to the country-houses of his 
friends, 194, 195 ; isolation at, 
199; versatihty of his pursuits 
at, 199 ; his own statement con- 
cerning his outlay upon the rec- 
tory of, 201 ; strict economy of 
his household, 202 ; his difficul- 
ties as a farmer with Scotch 
sheep, 213 ; moral courage, as 
a country clei-gyman, 217 ; an 
accession of fortune, 221 ; his 
love of his home at. 229 ; popu- 
larity with his parishioners, 230 ; 
an amusing adventure on the 
road near, 233 ; guests at the 
rectory, 236 ; Miss Leycester's 
recollections of a visit there, 237 ; 



friendship with Lord and Lady 
Wenlock at, 250 ; statement con- 
cerning intercourse with, by their 
daughter, the Hon. Mrs. J. 
Stuart Wortley,_ 251; Lord 
Macaulay's impressions of Foston, 
255 ; Jeffrey's visit to, 256; mar- 
riage of Emily Smith to Mr. 
Hibbert at church of, 262 ; no- 
mination of rector of, to a stall at 
Bristol, 262 ; proposal to exchange 
Foston for the living of Corse, 
Gloucestershire, 268 ; removal 
to Combe-Florey, 269 ; sorrow of 
the villagers at Foston on his 
departure, 270; servants from, 
at Combe-Florey, 271 ; wanted — • 
the bracing air of, in Somerset, 
272. 

Foundling Hospital, Sydney Smith 
appointed preacher at, 129 ; sti- 
pend, 129 ; connection with, ter- 
minated by removal to Yorkshire, 
129. 

Fox, Right Hon. Charles James, 
M.P., 118, 123, 140; death of, 
141, 258. 

, General Charles, 122. 

, Henry (fourth Lord Holland), 

as a boy, 211. 

French, Opinion of, 256. 

Frere, J. H., at Eaton with Bobus, 
10 ; a contributor to the Micro- 
cosm-, 11. 

Fry, Elizabeth, 205. 



GAME LAWS, 214-218. 

Gate, Screeching, at Foston, 179. 

" Gazette Extraordinary" — a Re- 
form squib, 286. 

George III., 239. 

IV., 240, 260, 282. 

Girdlestone, Rev. Canon, successor 
to Sydney Smith at Halberton, 
281 

Gladstone, Right Hon. W. E., M.P., 
338 ; acquaintance with Sydney 
Smith, 367. 

, Letter 

from, 368. 

Goderich. Lord, 261. 

Goethe, 37. 

Goldsmith, Oliver, 6. 



INDEX. 



399 



Gordon, Mr. Alexander, pupil of 
Sydney Smith, 92. 

, Dr. John, 227. 

Gout, Sydney Smith on the, 310, 
360. 

Granville, Earl, K.G., friendship 
with Sydney Smith, 370. 

, Letter from, 370. 

Grattan, Right Hon. Henry, M.P., 
240. 

Grenville, Lord, 240. 

, Mr. : impressions of 

Sydney Smith at St. Paul's, 313. 

Greville, Mr., Letter to, 382. 

Grey, (second)Earl,K.G.: friendship 
with Lord Holland, 118; Sydney 
Smith a visitor to, at Howick, 
160 ; life-long friendship with, 
161 ; fondness for the clergy, 
204 ; appoints Sydney Smith a 
Canon Residentiary of St. Paul's, 
293 ; passes the Reform Bill, 
302 ; retii'ement from public life, 
312 ; last messages to, 390. 

, Letter from. 



293. 



Countess. 224. 

-.Letter to, 311. 



, (third) Earl, K.G., 161. 

, Lady Elizabeth, 181. 

, Georgiana, 161. 

" Griffin, Gregory," 11; Queen Char- 
lotte's remark upon, 12. 
Grote, Geoi'ge, 337. 

, Mrs., 347, 377, note 2,17. 

Guillemard, Mr., Letter to, 309. 
Guizot, M., 74. 

HALBERTON, Obtains living of, 
with stall at Bi'istol, 269; con- 
nection with, 280 ; conti'oversy 
about vicar's rights, 281 ; tradi- 
tions of, at, 282. 

, Letter to the Ves- 
try of, 281. 

Hall, Rev. Robert, 393. 

Hallam, Henry, 344, 368. 

Harcourt, The late Egerton Vernon, 
Esq., J. P. : recollections of Syd- 
ney Smith at Foston, 181. 

, Miss Georgiana: life-long 

friendship with Sydney Smith, 
316. 351, 372, 385, 387. See also 
Malcolm, Mrs. 



Harcourt, Miss Georgiana, Letters 
to, 316, 325, 333, 352, 375, 385, 
387. 

, Miss G. (Mrs. Malcolm), 

Letter from, 372. 

Rev. William Vernon, 



244, 249 ; lines on the marriage 
of, 250. 

Right Hon. Sir William 



Vernon, M.P., 181. See also Pre- 
face. 

, Dr. Vernon, Archbishop 



of York, 164; anecdotes of, 165- 
166 ; gets Windham Smith to the 
Charterhouse, 235 ; visits Foston 
to marry Miss Emily Smith to 
Mr. Hibbert, 263 ; a remark con- 
cerning, 265 ; a final message to, 
388. 
Hayward, Mr. Abraham, Q.C., 306. 
Heptarchy, The, and English 

habits, 380. 
Herder, 37. 

Heslington, Village of, 129 ; hires 
a house at, 157 ; description of, 
157; guests at, 159 ; quietude of, 
159 ; acquaintance with the squire 
of, 160; the children's hour at, 
163 ; birth of Windham at, 168; 
removal from, to Foston, 170. 
Hibbert, Mr. Nathaniel, of Mun- 
den, Herts, son-in-law of Sydney 
Smith, 263, 318. 

, Mrs. N., Emily, younger 

daughter of Sydney Smith, 15 ; 
marriage of, 263 ; subsequent life 
of, 263 ; accompanies her father 
to Paris, 318 ; Sydney Smith at 
Munden, 354. 
Highlands, Tour in, 80. 
Holland House, Dinner parties at, 
83; Sydney Smith becomes a 
visitor at, 117 ; historical and 
literary associations of, 117 ; 
Sydney Smith's description of, 
126 ; society at, 314. 

, Vassall, Lord, at Eton with 

Bobus Smith, 10; criticism of 
Jeffrey's English, 64 ; on Brough- 
am's versatility, 74 ; friendship 
with Sydney Smith, 117 ; unique 
associations of Holland House, 
117 ; his hospitality, 118 ; 
" nejDhew of Fox, and frieiid of 



400 



INDEX. 



Grey," 118 ; his guests, 119 ; 
Sydney Smith's estimate of his 
character, 120 ; John Allen's re- 
lationships with, 121 ; exerts his 
political influence on behalf of 
Sydney Smith, Ui; oifers the 
living of Ampthill, 203 ; meets 
Sydney Smith in Paris, 256; 
George IV.'s attitude towards, 
261 ; death of, 346. 

Holland, Lady, Friendshii? with, 
121; her imperious nature, 121; 
iier treatment of Macaulay, 121 ; 
and of Sydney Smith, 121 ; note, 
health of, 310. 

-, Letters to, 203, 264, 

377. 

, (fourth) Lord : Sydney 

Smith's opinion of, as a boy, 
211 ; succeeds to the peerage, 
211 ; British Minister at Flo- 
rence, 211 ; death at Naples, 211 ; 
his character, 211. 

— , Sir Henry, M.D., Anec- 



dote of Bobus Smith and, 15 ; 
marriage to Saba, eldest daugh- 
ter of Sydney Smith, 310; 
wanted, a prescription from, 318 ; 
African travels of, 377 ; attends 
Sydney Smith in last illness, 386. 
-, Saba (wife of Sir Henry): 



birth in Edinburgh, 93 ; origin 
of Christian name of, 94 ; mar- 
ried to Dr. Henry Holland at 
Foston, 94 ; death, 94 ; authoress 
of the " Memoir of the Rev. 
Sydney Smith," 95; childish re- 
collection of a visit to Sonning, 
145 ; her account of her father's 
first interview with the parish 
clerk of Foston, 152 ; remark as 
a child when her father was 
from home, 163; on her father's 
treatment of servants, 190 ; illus- 
trations of his wit in the pages 
of her " Memoir," 197 ; state- 
ment by, concerning her father's 
visit to Newgate with Mrs. 
Fry, 206 : her account of her 
father's last illness, 388. See 
also Preface. 

Miss (daughter of Sir 



Henry Holland), 168, 345, 371. 
See also Preface. 



Honeymoon, Lines on Mr. and Mrs. 
Wm. Harcoui't passing their, at 
the Lakes, 250. 

Horner, Francis, Friendship with, 
41, 45 ; a founder of the Edin- 
burffh . Review, 66 ; his special 
subject as a reviewer, 57 ; his 
early contributions, 61 ; removal 
to London, 61 ; Jeffrey writes to 
place before hi in the pros and 
cons about the Review, 62 ; son of 
an Edinburgh merchant, 69 ; his 
education, 69, 70 ; his pronounced 
Liberal views, 70 ; called to the 
English Bar, 70; his mastery of 
finance, 70; enters Parliament 
through the influence of Lord 
Henry Petty, 70 ; his remark- 
able speeches on the question of 
the Currency, 71 ; Lord Camp- 
bell's remark concerning him, 
71 ; early death, 71 ; monument 
in Westminster Abbey, 71 ; last 
interview with, 72 ; Sydney . 
Smith's estimate of his charac- 
ter, 72 ; the character of his work 
in the Edinhwrgh Review, 72; 
a member of the Friday Club, 
96 ; kindness to Sydney Smith 
in London, 107 ; " Knight of the 
Shaggy Eyebrows," 107 ; de- 
scribed by Sydney Smith as a 
"Literary Tiger," 108 ; introduces 
Sydney Smith to his London 
circle of friends, 110 ; a visitor 
at Holland House, 125 ; ver- 
dict of, on Sydney Smith's quali- 
fications as a lecturer on moral 
philosophy, 131 ; writes the poli- 
tical epitaph of the Ministry 
of "All the Talents," 142; 
Jeffrey's complaints to Horner 
about his flagging interest in 
the Review, 153; a visitor at 
Foston, 159; death of, 227; 
remark of Sydney Smith to Miss 
Martineau upon character of, 
360. 

Hospital, Foundling. See " Found- 
ling Hospital." 

Houghton, Lord, 138, 345, 370, 371, 
376. 

Howard, Mr. Geo., M.P. See 
Preface. 



INDEX. 



401 



Howard, John, 205. 

, Philip, Letter to, 272. 

■ , Hon. Mrs., Lii.es entitled 

the " Poetical Medicine Chest " 
presented to, by Sydney Smith, 
323. 

Howley, Archbishop, 7. 

Humboldt, Alex, von, 119. 

Hume, David, 41. 

, Joseph, M.P., 1-1. 

Hunt, Leigh, 342. 



" IMMORTAL," The, Sydney 
Smith's Foston carriage, 188, 
193, 200, 321. 

" Ingoldsby Legends," 380. 

Institution, Royal, Sydney Smith 
a lecturer at, 133; liis immediate 
success, 133 ; his own estimate 
to Jeffrey and Whewell of the 
Lectures, 134, 135 ; Horner's ac- 
count of them, 134 ; Lord Jef- 
frey's criticism on, when pub- 
lished, 137 ; a remark by Sydney 
Smith, on the subject to Lord 
Houghton, 138. 

Ireland, 86, 377. 

Irishmen, Society of United, 87. 

Irreverence, Alleged, of Sydney 
Smith, 82, 371, 372, 373. 

Irving, Rev. Edward, 308. 

, Washington, 119. 



JEFFREY, Francis, Lord, a con- 
temporary of Sydney Smith at 
Oxford, 19 ; opinion of the Uni- 
versity, 19 ; position in Edin- 
burgh, 41 ; guest of Sydney 
Smith, 45 ; Edinbiirgli Review 
projected at his house, 55 ; his 
statement to Dr. Robert Cham- 
bers on the subject, 56; Brough- 
am's description of Jeffrey's 
" doubts and fears," 57 ; the 
house in Buccleuch Place, 59 ; 
Jeffrey's contribirtions to the 
early numbers of the Bevietv, 61 ; 
his reluctance to become a 
jourualist, 62; his early years, 
64; at Queen's College, Oxford, 
64; Lord Holland's verdict on 
his stay at Oxford, 64 ; called to 



the Bar, 64; marriage, 65; 
poverty, 65 ; death of Mrs. Jef- 
frey, 65 ; his second wife, grand- 
niece of John Wilkes, 65 ; Jef- 
frey as a critic, 66 ; his knowledge 
of men, 66 ; his treatment of 
Wordsworth, 67 ; Southey's in- 
dignation, 69 ; connection with 
the Friday Club, 95 ; a visitor at 
Holland House, 125; criticism 
on Sydney Smith's lectures at 
the Royal Institution, 137 ; 
difficulties with the Bevietv, 153; 
Sydney Smith's account of Jef- 
frey's position in Edinburgh, 155; 
a visitor at Heslington, 159; a 
return visit from Sydney Smith, 
226; Jeffrey and the "Pantheon 
Meeting" on Reform, 228 ; Lord 
Rector of Glasgow University, 
228 ; visits Foston, 256 ; friend- 
ship with Mrs. Hibbert, 263 ; a 
guest at Combe Florey, 275; ap- 
pointed Lord Advocate of Scot- 
laud, 276; a remark of Sydney 
Smith upon, 276: the services of, 
to the nation, 335; a demand 
note to, 344. 

-, Lord, Letters to, 98, 137, 



154. 

Jeffreys, Judge, 300. 

Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 6 ; at Ox- 
ford, 18 ; opinion of the Scotch, 
42, 168, 314, 348, 393. 

■ , Thomas, village tailor at 

Foston, An altercation with, 188. 

Jones, Sir William, 95. 

Journalism, Former position of, 95. 

Juiy, Trial by. Difficulties in the 
way of introducing, in Australia, 
815. 



KAYE, Annie, 170, 191, 271. 

Kemble, Fanny, note 377, 379. 

Kilvington, Wm., coachman to 
S_yduey Smith, 193 ; chair in his 
possession, 193; death of, notn 
194. 

Kinglake, Mr. Robert Arthur, J. P., 
Reminiscences by, of Sydney 
Smith's " Dame Partington 
speech " at Taunton, 299-302. 
See also Preface. 

D d 



402 



INDEX. 



Kingsley, Eev. Charles, 217. 

Kirkham, Village of, in Yorkshire, 
175 ; a roadside encounter near, 
233. 

Kindness of Sydney Smith to 
children, at Nether Avon, 23, 
34, 35; at Howick, 161 ; at Hes- 
lington, 163 ; at Foston, 185, 189; 
at Weston House, 237 ; at 
Combe-Florey, 347, 354, 356, 
385. 

Kindness of Sydney Smith to the 
poor and aged, at Nether Avon, 
35; at Foston, 182, 183, 184, 
•270 ; at Combe-Florey, 278, 347. 



LAMB, Charles, 62. 

Lambton, John George, MP. See 
Durham, Earl of, 

Lambton Castle, 204, 226 ; Syd- 
ney Smith's admiration of, 229. 

Law, Poor, Amendment Act, 311 ; 

Law, Eeforin of Criminal, 206-209. 

Lansdowne, Marquis of, 13, 119, 

206, 257, 261, 370, 377. 
• , Letters to, 

207, 209, 273, 317, 325, 332, 375. 
Lauderdale, Earl of, 122, 226, 229. 
Leef, David, 271. 

Lennox, Lady Sarah, 118. 

Lethbridges, The, of Sandhill Park, 
Taunton, 300, 322. 

Leycester, Miss, Reminiscences of 
Sydney Smith by, 196, 237. 

Leycesters, The, of Toft, 195, 237. 

Leyden, John, 96. 

Liddon, Dr., of Taunton, 278. 

, Rev. Canon, note 278. 

Lindsay, Theophilus, 224. 

Lisle, Alice, 300. 

Liverpool, Earl of, 142, 241, 257, 
261. 

Loaf, The poor man's, 347. 

Londesborough, Temporary gift of 
living of, to Sydney Smith, 246 ; 
description of village, 246 ; his- 
torical and literary associations 
of, 247 ; anecdotes of Sydney 
Smith at, 247, 248. 

London, Bishop of, 382. 

, Sydney Smith's love of, 

348. 

Longman, Mr., 324. 



Lovelace, Thomas, parish clerk at 
Combe-Florey, 273 ; 356. 

Luttrell, Henry, 120, 307, 314. 

Lyrdhurst, Lord, 258, 262, 269. 

Lynton, 304. 

Lyttleton, Lord, on the writings of 
Sydney Smith, 78. 

Lyveden, (first) Lord, nephew of 
Sydney Smith, 15. 

MACAULAT, Lord, contributor 
to the Edinburgh Eevieiv, 76,119, 
121 ; visits Foston, 255, 341, 342. 

Mackenzie, Henry, 96. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 13, 62, 70, 
100, 120, 159, 161 ; death of, 309, 
318. 

Maclise's sketch of Brougham, 73. 

Malcolm, Mrs., A statement by,con- 
cerning Sydney Smith and Ma- 
caulay, 342 ; letter from, on the 
alleged irreverence of Sydney 
Smith, 372. See also Harcourt, 
Miss G. 

Marcet, Dr., 110. 

Markham, Archbishop, 145, 151. 

Martineau, Miss H., Letters to, 
358, 360. 

Matlock, Opinion of, 38. 

"Medicine Chest, The Poetical," 
323. 

Melbourne, Lord, 326. 

Methodists, Sydney Smith's unjust 
strictures upon the, 80, 393. 

Metternich, Prince, 120. 

Microcosm, 10 ; republished by 
Charles Knight, 11 ; Queen 
Charlotte a reader of, 12. 

Mildmay, Mrs. H., 317. 

Mills, Molly, 190. 

Milman, Dean, 392. 

Missions, Foreign, misrepresented 
by Sydney Smith, 81, 393. 

More, Hannah, 24, 33. 

Moore, Thomas, 98, 119, 235, 275, 
375, note 376. 

, Letter to, 347. 

Morgan, Mr., Letter to, 379. 

Morley, Earl of, 306. 

, Countess of, 273 ; Sydney 

Smith a frequent guest at Sal- 
tram, 305 ; witty letters to, 305 ; 
Mr. Hayward's estimate of, 306 ; 
her appreciation of Sydney 



INDEX. 



403 



Smith, 306 ; visits Combe-Florey, 

208 ; remark to, 344. 
Morley, Countess of, Letters to, 

306, 308, 310. 
Morpeth, Lady Georgiana, 212, 

219, 222. 
, Letters 

to, 212, 220, 230. 
Munden House, Watford, Herts, 

the home of Mrs. Hibbert, 263, 

354. 
Murchison, Sir R., 346. 
Murray, Lindley, 157. 

, John, A., Lord Advocate, 

41, 56, 57, 159, 318, 394. 
Music, Effect of, in the minor key, 
upon Sydney Smith, 366. 

If A.BURI^, Village of : a tardy ar- 
rival at church, 248. 

Nelson, Lord, 139. 

Nervousness, Remedies against, 
115. 

Nether Avon, Village of, 22 ; curate 
at, 22 ; seclusion of new position, 
23 ; establishes Sunday and day- 
schools, 23 ; Yew-Tree Walk at, 
25; church and parsonage of, 
29 ; description of village, 30 ; 
notes, 30, 31 ; apathy of villagers, 
32; beneficial results of the 
schools at, 35. 

" Newmania," 357. See also Pu- 
seyite Movement. 

Newton, Sir Isaac, 85. 

Nick, Poor, epitaph upon Mrs. 
Pybus's dog, 52. 

Nonconformists, missionary zeal 
of, caricatured by Sydney Smith, 
80, 393. 

OBSERVANCE, Sunday, 383. 

O'Connell, Daniel, 240, 260, 294. 

Olier, Maria, mother of Sydney 
Smith, 4. See Smith, Maria. 

'* Orchards," Sydney's, at Foston, 
184 

Ossory, Earl of, 203. 

Owen, Sir Richard, Letter from,369. 

Oxford, Sydney Smith student at, 
16 ; obtains a fellowship at New 
College, 17 ; dreary life at the 
University, 18 ; Jeffrey's impres- 
sions- of the University, 19. 



PAINTERS, Modern, Raskin's 
Sydney Smith's appreciation of, 
o74. 
Panic, The financial, of 1826, 253. 
" Pantheon, Meeting," The Edin- 
burgh, 227. 
Paris, Visits to, 255, 319. 
Parties, Breakfast, at Green Street, 
366, 

, Supper, at Doughty Street, 

1.^7. 
Partington, Dame, 295, 298-302. 
Paul's, St., Cathedral, Appointed 
Canon of, 293 ; description of the 
atmosi^here of, in winter, 309; 
popularity as a preacher at, 312 ; 
appearances in the pulpit of, 
313 ; characteristics of his ser- 
mons at. 357 ; attention to the 
business of the Chapter of, 364 ; 
music at, 366 ; last words at, 
383 ; a strange omission in the 
monuments of, 392-3. 
Peel, Right Hon. Sir Robert, M.P„ 

257, 289, 326, 368, 378. 
Perceval. Right Hon. S., M.P., 97, 

142, 147, 1.50. 
Peterloo Massacre, 219, 223. 
Petrarch, 360. 

Petty, Lord Henry, M.P„ 40, 70, 206. 

See also Lansdowne, Marquis of. 

Phillips, Sir George, of Manchester, 

194, 224, 237, 241. 
Pisa, Horner's journey to, 72. 
Pitt, Right Hon. William, M.P., 

Death of, 140, 258, 300. 
Playfair, Professor, 40, 57, 95; 

death of, 227. 
Plunket, Lord, 240. 
Plymley, Peter, Letters on the sub- 
ject of the Catholics by, 146 ; 
sensation they created, 146 ; 
Peter's reverend brother, a re- 
presentative man, 147 ; character- 
istics of the letters of, 148, 295. 
Poor, Kindness towards. See 

Kindness. 
Prestwich Church, near Manches- 
ter, 196. 
Prisons,Proposed rules for, 207,209. 
Prisoners, Treatment of, note 215. 
Pulpit in Foston Church, 177. 
Puseyite, The, movement, 352 ; an- 
tagonism towards, 357 ; his own 



404 



INDEX. 



account of his reasons against, 
358-359 ; " What is a Puseyite ? " 
361. 
Pybue, Miss Amelia, Marriage to 
Sydney Smith of, 51 ; her father, 
51 ; epitaph by Sydney Smith on 
Mrs. Pybus's dog at Cheam, 62 ; 
married at Cheam Church, 52 ; 
conduct of brother of, 53 ; her 
mother's kindness to, 63 ; pro- 
spects of, as bride, 53-54 ; sale of 
her mother's pearls, 109. See 
also Smith, Mrs. Sydney. 

QUEBEC, 166. 

Qaeen Victoria, Marriage of, 344. 

EAIKES, Robert, 24. 

Railway, The, 362,367. 

Reading, Love of, 113, 200, 277. 

Reform, Parliamentary, Interest in, 
282; Lord Grey's pro^josals for, 
284; second reading of Reform 
Bill, 286; "Gazette Extraordi- 
nary," 286 ; the struggle in Par- 
liament, 291 ; Bill thrown out by 
the Lords, 292 ; indignation in 
the country, 292 ; Reform meet- 
ing at Taunton, 297 ; the Dame 
Partington speech, 298-302 ; the 
Reform Bill becomes law, 303. 

Regent, The Prince, 120. 

Reid, Dr. Thomas, 41. 

Review, Edinburgh, 51 ; Sydnev 
Smith's account of its j^^'C'jec- 
tion, 55 ; Lord Jeffrey's state- 
ment concerning it, 66 ; Lord 
Brougham's reminiscences of its 
origin, 57 ; the first contributors 
to, 57 ; comparison of the various 
accounts of, 57-68; Jeffrey's 
house, Buccleuch Place, at which 
the scheme was mooted, 59; 
Sydney Smith revises the first 
articles, 60; published by Con- 
stable, 60 ; the secrecy observed 
by the literary conspirators, 60 ; 
their agreement with Constable, 
61 ; immediate success of, 61 ; 
Jeffrey appointed editor, 63 ; the 
ability with which he conducted 
it, 65 ; Francis Horner,Brougham, 
and Sydney Smith as contributors, 



72-78 ; an anecdote of Brough- 
am and Sydney Smith, 98 ; the 
opinion in London on its opening 
numbers, 108 ; Allen as a contri- 
butor, 123 ; growing influence of, 
133 ; Jeffrey's indignation at the 
apathy of his colleagues, 153-154; 
Sydney Smith's motives for 
writing reviews, 154; his remark 
on the editor's payment, 155 ; 
work for, at Heslington, 159; 
exposes the Game Laws in the 
pages of, 214-217; champions 
the climbing-boys in, 218 ; de- 
clines to revise a manuscript for, 
231 ; advocates the Catholic 
claims in, 242 ; last contribution 
to, 269 ; Jeffrey's resignation of 
the editorial chair of, 276; the 
contributions of Sydney Smith 
to, collected andrepublished, 334; 
services in the pages of, 335-336 ; 
the payment of his articles to, 
344; strictures in the images of, 
upon the Methodists, and on 
Foreign Missions, 80-81, 393. 

Revival, Wesleyan, misunderstood 
by Sydney Smith, 80, 393. 

Rivers, Sir Thomas, on Weimar, 37. 

Robertson, Dr. William, 41. 

Robinson, Henry Crabb, 3i4. 

, Jack, village carpenter at 

Foston, 190, 192. 

Rogers, Samuel, 119, 198, 235, 307, 
314 342 

Romilly, Sir Samuel, M.P., 70, 73 ; 
friendship with Sydney Smith, 
110; a visitor at Holland House, 
120 ; a guest at Heslington, 169. 

Rumford, Count, 119, 133. 

Ruskin, John, Letter from, 374. 

Russell, Lord John, M.P., 40, 66, 
119, 284, 304, 326, 332, 378. 



SALISBURY, City of, 22 ; Bishop 

of, 24. 
Salisbury Plain, 23, 30. 
Sanford, Rev. Edward A., 355, 392. 
Satire, characteristics of Sydney 

Smith's, 82, 136, 248. 
Scarlett, James (Lord Abinerer), 

110. ^ 

Schiller, Frederick, 37. 



INDEX. 



405 



Schools, Day atid Sunday, estab- 
lished at Nether Avon, 23. 

Scotch, Character of, 42. 

Scotland, Definition of, 42 ; travel 
in, 42. 

Scots Grreys, Remark upon a young 
officer of, 321. 

Scott, Sir Walter, 41 , 95, 97, 210. 

Sermons, Publishes first volume of, 
48 ; dedication to Lord Webb 
Seymour, 49 ; pra,ctical character 
of, 49-50 : early sermons in Lou- 
don, 111; benevolence of their 
tone, 128 ; characteristics of, 
at St. Paul's, 312 ; a criticism of, 
by Mr. Grenville, 813. 

Sewell, Dr., Warden of New 
College, Oxford, on Sydney 
Smith's connection with the Uni- 
versity, 16. 

Seymour, Lord Webb, 40 ; friend- 
shiiD with, 48 ; dedicates first 
book to, 49, 70 ; death of, 227. 

Sharp, Mr. Richard, M.P., 314. 

Sheep, Scotch, 213. 

Shell, Richard Lalor, M.P., 241. 

Short, Dr. Vowler, 2-52. 

Shute, Dr., Bishop of Salisbury, an 
advocate of Sunday-schools, 24. 

Sidmouth, Yiscount : family motto, 
14, 142. 

Simpson, Rev. F., 176. 

Singleton, Archdeacon, Letters to, 
103; letters to, on the Eccle- 
siastical Commission, 326-332. 

Skiddaw, 39. 

Slavery, Abolition of, colonial, 
31L 

Smith, Adam, 41. 

■ , Cecil,Birthof, 4 ; character 

as a lad, 5 ; educated with eldest 
brother at Eton, 6 : Accountant- 
General of Madras, 15 ; death at 
the Cape, 15. 

Courtenay, Birth of, 4; 



sent to Winchester under Sydney 
Smith's care, 6 ; runs away 
from school, 8; subsequent 
school triumphs, 9; follows 
Bobus to India, 15 ; rises to the 
rank of a Supreme Judge, 16 ; 
sudden death, 16 ; his Winchester 
debts, 18 ; death of, 340. 
, Douglas, 94, 138, 168, 172, 



182. 194, 196, 199, 203, 204, 205, 
235, 251, 252 ; death of, 268 ; in- 
scription on grave of, 269, 390. 

Smith, Emily, birth of, 138. See 
Hibbert, Mrs. 

, Maria, mother of Sydney 

Smith, daughter of a Languedoc 
emigrant, 4 ; her resemblance to 
Mrs. Siddons, 4 ; her character 
and influence on her children, 4; 
Sydney's indebtedness to her, 4; 
early death of, 5. 

Robert, of Devonshire 



extraction, 2 ; abandons a busi- 
ness career in youth, 2 ; rest- 
lessness and eccentricity, 2 ; 
marriage, 3 ; character, 3 ; death, 
3 ; Sydney's description of his 
father's old age, 3 ; his oppo- 
sition to his son's desire to follow 
the Law, 20; fondness for un- 
common Christian names, 93; 
visited by Sydney, 205 ; last 
years at Bishop's Lydiard, 222. 
-, Robert Percy, M.P. (Bobus), 



Birth of, 4 ; educated at Eton, 6 ; 
his classical attainments, 10 ; 
early friendships, 10 ; starts the 
Microcosm, with his school- 
fellows Canning and Prere, 10 ; 
interview with Queen Charlotte, 
12 ; his career at King's College, 
Cambridge, 13 ; called to the 
Bar, 13 ; married at Bowood by 
Sydney to Miss Vernon, 13 ; 
Advocate- General at Calcutta, 
13; enters Parliament, 14; his 
wit, 14 ; anecdotes of, 14-15 ; 
death, 15; life-long friendship 
of the two brothers, 353; 
devotion of, to Sydney at the 
last, 390. 

, Letter to his brother 



Sydney in old age, 353. 

Saba. See Holland, 



Lady. 

, Sydney: birth at Woodford, 

Essex, 1 ; armorial bearings, 
2 ; his father, 2 ; character, 

3 ; his mother, 3 ; her influence, 

4 ; his brothers and sister, 4, 5 ; 
his first school, 6 ; admitted 
scholar at Winchester, 6; his 
experiences at Winchester school. 



406 



INDEX. 



7, 8, 9 ; proceeds to New College 
Oxford, 16 ; obtains a fellowship 
16 ; his poverty at Oxford, 17 
geoerosity to youngest brother 
18 ; choice of a profession, 19 
desire for the Bar, 19 ; his 
father's attitude, 20 ; resolve to 
enter the Church, 20 ; ordination, 
22 ; Curate of Nether Avon, 22 
solitude of his new position, 22 
traditions of his curacy, 23 
establishes schools on Sundays 
and week-days, 23, 24 ; the 
squire of Nether Avon, 25; 
condition of the poor, and his 
comments upon it, 26, 27, 28 ; 
the church and parsonage, 29, 
30 ; visits Williamstrip Park, 
31, 32 ; life at Nether Avon, 36 ; 
appointed travelling tutor to 
Michael Beach, 36 ; new plans, 
37, 38 ; arrival in Edinburgh 
with his pupil, 39 ; his criticisms 
of the Scotch, 42 ; houses he oc- 
cupied in Edinburgh, 43, 44, 45 ; 
attends University lectures, 46 ; 
occasional preacher at Charlotte 
Chapel, 46, 47 ; publishes first 
book, 49 ; its character and con- 
tents, 49, 50, 61 ; marriage to 
Miss C. A. Pybus, of Cheam, 51 ; 
Epitaph ou Mrs. Pybus's dog, 52 ; 
prospects, 63 ; an opportune 
gift, 54 ; Edlnhurgh Bevieui, — its 
projection, 55 ; his contributions 
to the early numbers, 61 ; quits 
Edinburgh, 61 ; his characteristics 
as a reviewer, 77 ; courage, 
humour, and common-sense, 78, 
79, 80 ; errors of judgment, 80, 
81; his ecclesiastical jokes, 82; 
impublished " Treatise on Wit 
and Humour," 83-86 ; relations 
with pupil, 88-93 ; birth of eldest 
daughter, 94 ; origin of name, 
Saba, 94; death of his mother, 
94 ; intimacy with Diigald 
Stewart, 94 ; other Edinburgh 
friends, 95, 96 ; Scott and 
Leyden, 96, 97 ; Jeffrey and the 
Revieiv, 99 ; arrival in London, 
100 ; first impressions, 100 ; his 
position in the Church, 103-105; 
first London home, 108 ; birth 



of eldest son, 109 ; Mi-s. Smith 
and the pearls, 109 ; new ac- 
quaintances, 110 ; " a little 
moral advice," 112 ; remedies 
against nervousness, 115 ; re- 
garded as a dangerous man, 116 ; 
introduction to Holland House, 
117 ; friendship with Lord Hol- 
land, 120 ; attitude of Lady Hol- 
land, 121 ; Sydney Smith and the 
aristocracy, 126 ; his poverty, 
126 ; portrait at Holland House, 
127 ; home in Doughty Street, 
127; position in the Church, 128 ; 
evening preacher at the Found- 
ling Hospital, 12i); friendship 
with Sir Thomas Bernard, 130 ; 
morning preacher at Berkeley 
Chapel, 132; lecturer at the Royal 
Institution, 133 ; sudden popu- 
larity, 134 ; his own account of 
the Lectures, 135 ; Lord Jeffrey's 
verdict upon them, 137 ; removes 
to Orchard Street, 138 ; birth of 
Douglas, 138 ; presentation to 
Foston, 144; the "Peter 
Plymley" letters, 146; the sen- 
sation they created, 146 ; the 
parsonage-house at Foston, 
151 ; the parish clerk's verdict 
on the new rector, 162 ; Sydney 
Smith's clerical prospects, 156 ; 
publishes two volumes of ser- 
mons, 166 ; removal to York- 
shire, 167 ; his house at Hes- 
lington, 157 ; acquaintance with 
the village squire, 160 ; friend- 
ship with Earl Grey, 160 ; 
Sydney Smith at his own fire- 
side, 162 ; kindness to children, 
163 ; Dr. Harcourt and Sydney 
Smith, 164; the Archbishop's 
guest at Bishopthorpe, 164 ; 
birth of Windham, 168 ; builds 
Foston Rectory, 168 ; settles at 
Foston, 170; life at Foston, 173; 
friendshijj with the Earl of 
Carlisle, 173 ; Castle Howard, 
174 ; in church at Foston, 176 ; 
the rectory and grounds, 178 ; 
Mr. E . V. Harcourt's recollections, 
181 ; village doctor, 183 ; kind- 
ness to the villagers, 183 ; 
" Sydney's Orchards," 184 ; 



INDEX. 



407 



Sydney Smith as a farmer, 184 ; 
and anecdote of the "Immortal," 
188 ; the rector's Bible-class, 
189 ; kindness to servants, 190 ; 
the furniture at the rectory, 193 ; 
visits Manchester, 194 ; preaches 
atAlderley,196; Miss Ley cester's 
recollections of him at Prestwich 
Church, Manchester, 196 ; im- 
promptu sayings, 197 ; Douglas 
at Westminster School, 199 ; 
isolation at Foston, 200 ; love 
of reading, 200 ; his own account 
of his Living, 201 ; illness of 
Douglas, 204 ; visits Newgate 
with Mrs. Fry, 2436 ; corre- 
spondence with the Marquis of 
Lansdowne on the reform of the 
Criminal Laws, 206-210 ; opinion 
upon the " heirs-apparent " at 
Holland House and Castle 
Howard, 211 ; his troubles with 
Scotch sheep, 213 ; the Game 
Laws, 214 ; Sydney Smith as a 
magistrate, 218 ; sudden acces- 
sion of fortune, 221 ; death of his 
father, 222 ; advice concerning 
low spirits, 222 ; visit to Edin- 
burgh, 226 ; guest of Mr. Lamb- 
ton, M.P., 228; Lambton Castle 
and the introduction of gas, 228 ; 
advice to a literary asj)irant, 231 ; 
an awkward episode on the Mal- 
ton Road, 233 ; sends Windham 
to the Charterhouse, 235 ; treat- 
ment of dumb animals, 237 ; 
sermons in York Minster, 237 ; 
Lady Camperdown's recollec- 
tions of Sydney Smith at 
Weston House, 238 ; first 
appearance on a political plat- 
form, 243 ; speech at Beverley 
on the Catholic claims, 244 ; 
temporary gift of the living of 
Londesborough, 246; his visits 
there, 247 ; his absent-minded- 
ness, 248 ; lines on Mr. and Mrs. 
Harcourt passing their honey- 
moon at the Lakes, 250 ; friend- 
ship with Lord and Lady 
Wenlock, 250 ; reminiscences by 
their daughter, the Hon. Mrs. 
Stuart Wortley, 251; "Letter 
to the Electors," 254 ; Macaulay 



at Foston, 255; Sydney Smith 
in Paris, 256 ; of the family 
of Falstaff, 256; last contribu- 
tion to iLdlnhurglb lieview, 259; 
advice to foes of Catholic emanci- 
pation, 259 ; view of political 
affairs in 1827, 261 ; appointed 
Canon of Bristol, 262 ; friendship 
with Lord Lyndhurst, 262; 
marriage of youngest daughter 
Emily to Mr. Hibbert, 262; 
first impressions of Bristol, 264 ; 
popularity as a preacher at the 
cathedral, 265 ; sermon on the 
treatment of the Catholics, 266 ; 
mortification of the civic authori- 
ties, 267 ; a newspaper war, 267 ; 
proposal to settle at Corse, 268 ; 
serious illness of Douglas, 268 ; 
death of Douglas, 268 ; triumph 
of the Catholic Emancipation 
Bill, 268 ; epitaph on the grave 
of Douglas, 2t)9 ; receives the 
living of Halberton, 269 ; ex- 
changes Foston for Combe-Flore}', 
269 ; distress of his Yorkshire 
parishioners, 270 ; first impres- 
sions of Combe- Florey, 272; the 
awen-ity of the parish clerk, 
273 ; Combe-Florey Eectory, 
273 ; visit of Lord Jeffrey, 275 ; 
Sydney Smith in his study at, 

277 ; kindliness to the jioor of, 

278 ; attention to the sick, 278 ; 
pedestrian exploits, 279 ; the 
" foreign deer " at, 279 ; connec- 
tion with Halberton, 280 ; con- 
troversy with the vestry of, 281 ; 
traditions of, at, 282 ; takes 
part in the agitation for reform, 
285 ; " Gazette Extraordinary — 
Glorious Victory ! " 286 ; ap- 
pointed by Earl Grey a Canon 
Residentiary of St. Paul's, 293 ; 
the question of a bishopric for, 
295 ; " Dame Partington 
speech " at Taunton, 297-302 ; a 
succession of visitors at Combe- 
Florey, 304 ; friendship with 
Lord and Lady Morley, 305; 
popularity at St. Paul's, 312 ; 
his ai^pearances in the pulpit of, 
313 ; his wit in society, 314, 315 ; 
takes Mrs. Smith to Paris, 318 ; 



408 



INDEX. 



new house in Charles Street, 
Berkeley Square, 319; adven- 
tures on the Bath Road, 319 ; 
neighbourly intercourse at 
Taunton, 320 ; some remini- 
scences of his visits there, 321 ; 
the " Poetical Medicine Chest," 
323 ; characteristics of his brief 
notes, 324 : " Letters to Arch- 
deacon Singleton on the Eccle- 
siastical Commission, 326-332 ; 
republishes his contributions to 
the Edinburgh Bevietv, 334 ; 
variety of subject and versa- 
tility of treatment, 334 ; his 
endeavour to put things right, 
336 ; pamphlet on the " Ballot," 
337-340; unexpected accession of 
fortune, 340 ; friendship with 
Dickens, 341 ; curiosity aboiit 
Carlyle, 341 ; encounters with 
Macaulay, 341, 342 ; his last 
London home — 66, Green 
Street, Grosvenor Square, 343; 
a political and literary resort, 
343; Mrs. GroteatCombe-Florey, 
345 ; the poor man's loaf, 347 ; 
a memljer of the Athenseaui 
Club, 348 ; fondness for London, 
348; some snatches of his con- 
versation, 349, 350 ; in church 
at Combe-Florey, 354 ; charac- 
teristics of his sermons at St. 
Paul's, 356; attitude towards 
the Puseyite movement, 356, 
357 ; corresi^ondeuce with Miss 
Martineau. 358-360 ; " What is a 
Puseyite ? " 361 ; his attention 
at St. Paul's to the business of 
the Chapter, 364-365 ; occa- 
sional intolerance, 365 ; effect of 
music in the minor key upon, 
366 ; gradual withdrawal into 
comparative pi'ivacy, 366 : letters 
to the Morninci Clvronide about 
the railway, 367 ; Mr. Gladstone's 
reminiscences of Sydney Smith, 
368 ; Sir Richard Owen's ditto, 
368-370 ; Earl Granville's ditto, 
370 ; alleged irreverence of, 
testimony of Lord Houghton 
and Mrs. Malcolm, 371-373; John 
Ruskin and Sydney Smith, 374; 
vivacity of last letters of, 374; 



Thomas Moore at Combe-Florey, 
375 ; petition to Congress against 
the public repudiation of 
American Bonds, 378, 379 ; a 
sincere friend to America, 380 ; 
his friendship with the Rev. R. 
H. Barham, 380, 381; higti 
spirits, 381 ; increasing physical 
infirmity, 382 ; final words at 
St. Paul's, 383, 384; unabated 
interest in the poor of Combe- 
Fiorey, 385; last glimpse of 
the sea, 386 ; the beginning of 
the end, 386 ; a brief " Indian 
summer," 387 ; last letter to 
Miss Georgiana Harcourt, 387; 
gratitude for the attentions of 
his friends, 388 ; a touching act 
of patronage, 390 ; last messages 
to Earl Grey, 390 ; the brotherly 
sympathy of Bobus, 390 ; his 
humble confidence as a Chris- 
tian, 389-390; death of, 390; 
f unei'al at Kensal Green, 390 ; 
inscription on the grave at, 391 ; 
strange lack of memorials of, at 
Foston, and at St. Panl's, 392 ; 
his character and public ser- 
vices, 393, 394. 
Smith, Mrs. Sydney, 1 ; parent- 
age, 51 ; marriage, 52 ; her own 
account of her mother's attitude 
in reference to her marriage, 53 ; 
prospects as a bride, 53 ; the first 
home of her married life — 46, 
George Street, Edinburgh, 45; 
the sale of her mother's pearls, 
109 ; early London home of, 127; 
an entreaty from, to her husband, 
131 ; her description of the re- 
moval to Yorkshire, 156; her 
account of the building of Foston 
Rectory, 168-170; her kindness 
to the young at Foston, 189 ; ac- 
companies her husband to Paris, 
318; her health, 343, 346; her 
interest in the village children of 
Combe-Florey, 356. 

, Windham, 94, 168, 170, 172, 

190, 194, 235. 

Southey, Robert, 69. 

Spirits, animal. On the cultivation 
of, 112 ; remedies for nervousness 
of, 115. 



INDEX. 



409 



Staei, Madame de, 14. 

Stanleys, The, of AlderJey, 195, 

237. 
Stewart, Dugald, Professor, 40, 41, 

46, 48, 67, 95, 159. 
Stonehenge, 23. 
Store3% Jack, a Yorkshire peasant, 

Encounter with, 233. 
Stowell, Lord, 145, 148. 
Sunday observance. 283. 
Sydenham, Lord, 309. 



TALENTS, Ministry of all the, 
142. 

Talleyrand, Prince de, 120, 256. 

Tankerville, Earl of, 196, 202, 326. 

Taunton, 269, 285. 

Tea, Abstinence from, 115. 

Thirnk, Meeting of clei'gy at, 243. 

Thomson, Dr. John, 56. 

Thornton-le-Clay, 180, 183, 270. 

Ticknor, Mr. George, Sydney 
Smith's remark on the aristo- 
cracy to, 126, 344. 

Tierney, Right Hon, George, M.P., 
257. 

Tinling, Rev. Canon, curate to 
Sydney Smith, 282. 

Tug, Lug, Hawl, Crawl, 169. 

ULLESWATER, 39. 



VERXON, Miss (half-sister to 
Lord Henry Petty) : marriage to 
Bobus Smith, 38. 

Verrey, Mr. (steward to Mr. Hicks- 
Beach) : " List of Nether- Avon 
Poor, 1793," 26, 27. 

Victoria, Queen, Marriage of, 344. 

Virgil, 8. 

Voltaire, Retort of, 84. 



WAR, Peninsular, 183. 
Wellington, Duke of, 257, 261, 283, 

Wenlock, Lord, 250. 

Wharton, Dr. Joseph, 6, 9. 

Whewell, Dr., 134. 

Whigs, The, and Sydney Smith, 

294. 
Wieland, Christopher Martin, 37. 
Wilbrahams, The, of Delamere, 

195 
Wilkes, John, M.P., 212. 
Wilkie, Sir David, 120. 
William IV., 283, 286. 
Willison, Pi-inting office of, at 

Edinburgh, 56. 
Winchester College, Sydney 

Smith's connection with, 6. 
Windermere, 39. 
Wishaw, 256. 
Wit and Humour, An essay on, 

83. 
Wit, Characteristics of Sydney 

Smith's, 78, 81, 136, 148, 164, 

197, 252, 256, 336, 342, 361, 371, 

373. 
Woodford, Essex, birthplace of 

Sydney Smith, 1. 
Wordsworth, William, Jeffrey's 

treatment of, 67. 
Wortley, The Hon Mrs. Stuart, 

Reminiscences by, of Sydney 

Smith, 251. 
Wrangham, Archdeacon, 244. 



YARBURGH, Major, of Hesling- 

ton, 159. 
York, 175,178, 180. 
York, H.R.H. the Duke of, 242. 
York Minster, 180, 237, 246. 

ZENITH, The English, 213. 



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